We typically speak of generational differences in the context of work (Boomers vs. Millennials!), but the conversation needs to go significantly further than that. The differences have major impact on societal changes, political changes, community and home changes; and as we sit at major decision points, we have to be able to learn from different generations and incorporate the perspectives.

Here is why: context changes. The year 1985 was viewed very differently from people in their 20s, 40s and 60s. The same is true today.

Growing up at the tail end of Gen X, my perspective has been formed by the way we were treated by previous generations, as well as the context of our experiences and major events. Gen X was the “lazy generation,” and at a macro level, you can see that it’s left the generation as skeptical, yet capable, of doing important things.

Whether you find yourself in the Boomer set, Gen X, Millennial or Gen Z, we all have opinions on our own generation and others. But it’s important to remember that we each generation has validity of perspective; one that we can interpret and learn from, but those learnings and lessons must be adapted to today’s context.

The world will evolve in spite of each generation, and we will see each generation arc over to a struggle for relevance. It’s happened before and will continue to happen. No matter the decision you have to make – the learning mindset of approaching and understanding others will provide value and influence that is far bigger than the short term decision of today.

With that – have a good week, enjoy your learning.

“We look on past ages with condescension, as a mere preparation for us….but what if we are a mere after-glow of them?” – JG Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur

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Welcome to bellwether. Thank you for joining again. This week episode, 106. We’re gonna talk about the different generations. Very topical right now. I like to do topical things and we’re talking in a topical sense about the difference. The generational differences between boomers X, me is X millennials, Z, um, Y ABC, and every other letter. Uh, and I’ve talked about this before. Typically we talk about differing generations in the context of work boomers and millennials. It was like the, the battle of the century, the right. They hate each other, um, the okay boomer and the, the ignorant millennials and the, you know, whatever it is that they want, but generationally, we there’s, there’s a lot of context by generation that really influences our, our worldview and our perspectives. And it’s kind of fascinating, the more you dive into it and the, the different generations that are out there and, and the way that they approach things.So this leads to beyond the workplace, things like societal changes, legal changes, political changes, uh, all very relevant today. And, and we can learn from these different generations as major decisions get made, or when we’re thinking about something relevant to ourselves. So for example, um, one time a while ago, I did a, uh, a podcast. I think I did a podcast on retirement and what baby boomers can learn from millennials in terms of the mindset of preparing the mentality of preparing for retirement. Now, we always talk about retirement in the context of financial decision, and do you have enough money to, to retire and go do whatever it is you want to do? Um, but there’s a psychological aspect too. And how do you approach it from an entrepreneurial standpoint to a keeping busy standpoint, to a side hustle standpoint, um, to a project based, you know, how do you keep yourself busy without doing the full grind kind of thing?And, uh, at the time, this was a few years ago, it was very, it was very topical from a millennial, uh, standpoint, um, point. Um, and just to be clear, uh, I’m not a millennial, I’m not a baby boomer, I’m at the tail end of generation X, which is the greatest generation. I will say that. Um, but I understand my wife’s a millennial and, and so I’m, I’m closer to that millennial so than I am to the boomers, but, um, but there was a time, you know, when the first baby boomer millennial kind of go at it, aspect of challenging each other, uh, I mean, it was probably at least a decade ago. Um, the millennials were probably what, late twenties, mid twenties. And so, um, you know, it was at that time when a generation was having fun, they should be having fun, um, and boomers resented it. And that kindOf led to the whole entire, um, difficulty, but, but the mindset and the way the millennials had approached work, thanks to the technology and context of everything that had happened was very different than the typical way that the boomers would’ve approached and even previous generations, because the world had changed completely. And, uh, you could kind of see the boomers resented the youth almost. And I mean, we and gen X dealt with it as well. We were the lazy generation, but, um, but so it’s interesting that generations hitting different times, you know, everyone’s gonna hate gen Z because they’re young , but, but their, their world view is gonna be very different. So where this all came up from and why I wanted to talk about it. Uh, and, and really the point of this podcast is to just to get you to think about it.It’s not like you wanna solve problems with this thing, but, uh, I have a, a young lady who works for me, her name’s Leah. She has all my social media, um, because I hate social media. Um, I just hate doing it and I don’t do it. And, and it’s almost table stakes. You have to do it if you have a business. And so I’ve got Leah to do it for me, and she gives me a list of things to do, and I’ll do a quick video for whatever she asks and I put it out and, or I send it to her and she puts it out. Um, and there you go. Right. Uh, great, good, good, good, good. She does good work and, and I like it, but we were talking about stuff, but she wanted to, um, she said, can I repost something from Gary V for those who don’t know Gary Vayner, Chuck, he runs Vayner media.He did wine.com. He’s kind of a forward thinker, very popular, lots of followers. And I, I kind of jumped on the fence on that one. Uh, and it led to a longer discussion on why generation X really doesn’t care for Gary V um, from my, from where I sit and I’m, I’m probably, it’s not that I don’t care for him, but I, I, you know, the value is questionable and I’ve kind of ebbed and flowed on, on Gary V. And, um, it just led to a longer conversation on, on generational differences and, and she loves Gary V, um, which is great. And there’s a generation who loves Gary V and, and I, I think, you know, my initial response to her was the reason we don’t really care for Gary V is that generation X, if you could give us a word to define our generation, it would probably be skeptical.Uh, generation X is known to be very skeptical of everything. Um, and, uh, I, I think it’s a great, obviously I think it’s a great way to be, um, we tend to dive into, or at least I do sometimes I go into cynicism a little too much, but, you know, skepticism is, is kind of relevant. So, um, the value of what people are putting out, which is, um, we’re skeptical of it. And, uh, and it’s just based on our experiences and the way that we were raised. And, and, you know, we were constantly told we were the worst generation and the lazy generation and, um, with all of our grunge music and, and good stuff from the late eighties and early nineties, um, it was the first time that, that we had almost that scale. We could share information and, and boomers could share information.And, um, we’ve gone through more changes than, than some of the other generations and the younger generations are going through even more than that. So, um, so much of the discussion that we had, uh, with Leah was, you know, a lot of the discussion normally is between boomers and millennials, but there’s a gen X and gen Z one that’s going to, to shake out. Um, and it’s going to be driven by, or, or it’s going to result in something very different because gen X’s skepticism is very different than, uh, I think if you used the word to describe boomers, not being a boomer, uh, I think the, the non boomers would probably describe them as selfish. The non gen X would probably come up with other words besides skeptical that wouldn’t necessarily be positive. Um, millennials would come up with very different words to describe themselves than the other generations, um, as well as, as gen Z, because, you know, we’re, we think of ourselves as each generation thinks of ourselves is fantastic.But, um, when we think about Gary V back to the story, uh, the reason we’re skeptical of it, and, and I’ll, I can only talk about my perspective on it is when he first started making, uh, a ruckus, I guess, online, I was fairly dismissive of it only because it was just speaking of platitudes, right. There was no real value in it. Um, and, uh, and I said, that’s great, but it doesn’t mean anything. And, and th...