Chip Conley on Wisdom and the Modern Elder

Chip Conley

Hospitality Disruptor, Author, Modern Elder, Curious Soul

What makes you feel like a grown-up?

Cultivating and harvesting my wisdom based upon learning from past mishaps.

Best gift you gave or received?

Every five years, I co-create a big birthday party somewhere in the world for a large group of friends.

Weirdest thing in your tote bag/backpack/suitcase?

My SleepScore machine that tracks my sleep and gives me a nightly score.

Something you refuse to give an f about?

What the Kardashians are up to.

Growing a Wisdom Workforce

When I was young, never one to have small ambitions, I wanted to be the President of the United States—though I thought this was unlikely to happen since I am gay. I did go on to build the Joie de Vivre chain of hotels. Every single one of our 52 boutique hotels had its own name and brand. It was like an art collection with a really evangelical customer base. But, after suffering through two once-in-a-lifetime downturns in the same decade (the dot-com combined with 9/11 and the Great Recession), I knew 24 years was long enough to be CEO and I sold.

Sometimes you have to end something, like selling Joie de Vivre, to see what will emerge. That’s when the three founders of Airbnb reached out to me and asked if I’d help them “democratize hospitality” as their little tech start-up was showing some global traction. I came on as the in-house mentor to young CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky and to head Global Hospitality and Strategy. They started calling me a “modern elder” as they said they “hired me for my knowledge, but what they got was my wisdom.” Their definition of a modern elder was the perfect alchemy of curiosity and wisdom.

One of the true joys of my work at Airbnb was being a “mentern” where I was mentoring people privately and interning publicly. Mutual mentorship is the future of learning and development in the workplace; we have so much to learn from each other. At Airbnb, over the course of many years, I had more than 100 mentees, but in most cases, they taught me something, often around technology, culture or the evolving life paths of people 40 or younger.

Management theorist Peter Drucker coined the term “knowledge worker” in 1959, suggesting that the future of work would be ruled by these people. He was right: 7 of the 10 most valuable companies in the world today are tech companies. We’re awash in knowledge today. But what’s scarce is wisdom—so I think it’s time to elevate the role of the “wisdom worker” who helps everyone around them be better at what they do based upon tapping into EQ (emotional intelligence). The level of ageism in our workforce depends upon the industry, but it’s rampant in Silicon Valley, advertising, entertainment and a growing number of other industries reliant upon DQ (digital intelligence). This is part of the reason I wrote the book Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder.

Following the tremendous response to my book, I started the Modern Elder Academy, the first midlife wisdom school, to share what I had learned in my own midlife transition. We’re living longer, power in a digital workplace is skewing younger and the world is changing faster. That means a lot of mid-lifers are feeling bewildered and  irrelevant. Plus, there are more life transitions happening between 45-65 than at any other time of adulthood. People come to the academy looking to repurpose themselves, seeking a like-minded cohort of people who want to apply a growth mindset to the last few decades of their lives. Our biggest success is an alumni community of 1,250 folks in 25 countries that remains extremely active. We are purchasing two properties in the Santa Fe, New Mexico area to open our first Modern Elder Academy Regenerative Communities in the United States.

For business leaders reading this who might be letting precious wisdom walk out their door, I would ask the following question on your regular employee satisfaction surveys, “Other than your boss, who in the company do you seek out for advice or wisdom?” Then, create a “heat map” of where wisdom resides in your company and look at a variety of new ways—training these wise souls as coaches or mentors, for example—to leverage this wisdom.