Unconventional Wisdom

January 5, 2020

Thank you, Seth. Being a friend is offering a witness to wisdom. For 37 years, I’ve had a front-row seat. You taught me that success is not a destination; it’s a way of being. You also taught me that to be successful, we must be useful. And it helps if we’re also remarkable, even if that means we’re a “purple cow” (otherwise we’ll end up invisible in a world filled with distractions).

Of course, one of your most enduring lessons will always be that curiosity and wisdom are best friends. Without curiosity, wisdom becomes static. Without wisdom, curiosity doesn’t engage in lifelong learning. You called this “the mindset of possibility,” a concept that remains with me to this day.

For me, the path to becoming a Modern Elder is about being, not doing. It’s about practices, not a playbook. It’s about embodying presence and trusting your intuition, not reading from someone else’s script. We take the wisdom we’ve gathered and make it our own.

I’ll never forget meeting David Bowie. He was staying at my rock and roll hotel, The Phoenix. While he sadly passed away almost exactly four years ago, he left us with this piece of profound wisdom, “Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”

Be that person. No one else has the credentials.

This is the last post in our week-long series of Chip Conley and Seth Godin sharing lessons on how to harvest and cultivate wisdom. Here are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th posts from the series.