Rapid Response: The rise of the “wisdom worker,” w/Modern Elder Academy’s Chip Conley
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
As we live and work longer, leaders need to redefine how they think about attracting and developing intergenerational talent. Modern Elder Academy's Chip Conley is at the forefront of this mindset shift, explaining why “wisdom workers” will take the place of “knowledge workers.” A close mentor to Airbnb founder Brian Chesky, Chip stresses that those in mid-career face both more angst and more opportunity than ever. He provides a roadmap for reframing midlife from crisis to calling, and argues that five generations in the workplace requires a new generational compact.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think it's time for us to reimagine education and disrupt it. |
| 0:07.1 | Research shows that around 45 to 50 we do have our lowest point of happiness in life. |
| 0:13.3 | But it's not necessarily a crisis as much as it is in midlife calling. |
| 0:18.8 | If you are a professional athlete and you're 35 years old, you are an elder. |
| 0:23.5 | If you're a software engineer in Silicon Valley and you're 40, you're over the hill. |
| 0:28.2 | If you're an advertising exec on Madison Avenue, we have over 3,000 alums now from 42 countries |
| 0:35.6 | around the world. |
| 0:36.6 | And the big surprises they are as young as 28 and as old as 88. |
| 0:42.3 | At any age we can reframe our relationship with aging. |
| 0:46.8 | Older people are starting 25% of the businesses in the US today and they have twice as high |
| 0:52.1 | of a success ratio as compared to some of them in their 20s. |
| 0:55.5 | The fact that generations in the workplace for the first time, it's time for us to create a new generation of compact. |
| 1:05.1 | That's Chip Conley, founder and CEO of Modern Elder Academy. |
| 1:09.6 | MEA has built a global community of leaders dedicated to unlocking generational talent. |
| 1:16.1 | I'm Bob Safian, former editor of Fast Company founder of the Flux Group and host of Masters |
| 1:21.4 | of Scale Rapid Response. I wanted to talk to Chip because he's redefining how we think about |
| 1:27.5 | careers and about talent. We all encounter inflection points in our career and with life expectancy |
| 1:33.9 | growing worldwide, midlife now comes with both more angst and more opportunity. |
| 1:40.0 | Chip was head of global hospitality at Airbnb where he helped mentor CEO Brian Chesky, |
| 1:45.5 | but he says he learned as much as he taught. |
| 1:47.9 | Intergenerational interplay, he says, will define the successful organizations of the future. |
| 1:54.1 | Chip argues that knowledge workers are destined to be displaced by what he calls wisdom workers. |
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