You are scuppered unless you are hands-on and learning from your experience

In our hyperconnected world, huge amounts of information are available to anybody with a connection. That levels the playing field. It means that a 20-year-old anywhere can muster facts and figures about any field as quickly as most 50-year-olds who have worked in that field all their life.

At any age, in any field of activity, what counts now are two things:

- Personal Experience, which means hands-on, things that you have done yourself NOT the innumerable case histories that are everwhere

- Learning from your Experience which means paying attention to the things you experience, reflecting on them and discussing them. Merely clocking up years doing a particular activity is no guarantee of expertise in it. Another person who has spent much less time doing it, but has learned more from it, will have a clear advantage.

Easy-going as I am, I increasingly find myself listening out for real substance as opposed to bullshit and bluster. I have found real substance in people of all ages, including teens - people who have actually tried things and gained insight from what they've tried.