Start to finish, young to old, novice to expert, modern to traditional, fresh to rotten, small to big, immature to mature, uncommon to common, unconventional to standard--there are at least two axioms about the cycles and rhythms of life that you cannot avoid.
- You cannot get to the latter stages without going through the former.
- If you want to keep experiencing more desired outcomes, you have to keep reproducing new beginnings.
Another way to think about this is to say that our future is wrapped up in the next generation. When you consider the next generation, you probably conjure up images of the younger people of the world, just as you should. But it is really about so much more than that. The next generation can be more broadly defined in terms of newness. Okay, so "there is nothing new under the sun," but there is a constant churn all around where things must be created and re-created, birthed and re-birthed, with cyclical similarities and incremental differences all along the way.
You cannot just hold onto life because, without any re-generation, it slowly ebbs away to nothing. Studies indicate that it takes about 2.1 children per family for a culture to sustain itself and more than that in order to grow. It's no different when it comes to just about everything out there--without a minimal amount of reproduction, all that we hold dear will eventually vanish.
So this year, as you look at that which lies ahead, imagine what might happen if you spent more of yourself investing in the next generation--not just young people, but young ideas, businesses, products, markets, charities, and brands. I like to call it re-generation, and I define it as giving away your best so that it can spread.
