Happy Sunday my dear Lucy,
I am writing this Nugget for myself and friends closer to my age, but knowing you as I do, you will also find this 'relevant.' Uncle Charlie shared this article from The Atlantic: Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think.
It is long but quite good. If you stick with it, you will learn about a Hindu guru named Sri Ramanacharanatirtha Nochur Venkataraman, known as Acharya (teacher) to his followers. You will learn about ancient Hindu teachings and the five stages of life. The first is Brahmacharya, the period of youth and young adulthood dedicated to learning. You are now in the Brahmacharya stage of life!
When I read the article, my first thought was of the above envelope prayer. For those who don't know the story, one of my best friends in Austin, Rodger Anderson, is my exact age, 60. Rodger and Tracy (Cathy’s best buddy) have four daughters, all similar in age to our girls. We connected immediately after moving to Austin 19 years ago. When we turned 50, Rodger shared a prayer he wrote and would often say with his family. He annotated it on the back of an envelope for me. The prayer consist of five things:
- Forgive me - for what I have done wrong and for when I have failed to do right
- Heal me - my mind, body, and soul
- Strengthen my faith each day
- Make me not afraid
- May I have mercy on those less fortunate
A few years after 'Rodge' shared what I now call the ‘envelope prayer,' he sold his real estate business to CBRE and signed on to run their retail business in Austin. He quickly found out working for a large cooperation was different than being his own boss. It was then that he added a sixth line to the prayer: relevance - help me stay relevant.
I knew what Rodge was feeling. I grabbled with that word quite a bit over the past decade, especially after divesting from day-to-day work at Salient and moving into an enterprise-sales role with a global technology company. I have written the word ‘relevance’ on the top left corner of my daily planner everyday sense. Fortunately, for both Rodge and me, in our profession of sales, 'crystallized' intelligence is far more beneficial than 'fluid' intelligence. These terms are in the article, explaining why we are both still very much on top of our games.
In closing, I'll leave you with one more teaser from the article. Read it and find out why after age 50, we should all strive to "be more like Johann Sebastian Bach, not Charles Darwin."
Love,
Dad
P.S. The photo of Rodge below is after he bowled his personal best 221 this past Christmas during our annual excursion to Dart Bowl. His previous best (180) set 47 years earlier when he was just 12 years old. Now that is staying relevant!
