My recent posting of a letter I had written eleven years ago got me thinking:
There’s a reason why my Life Coaching and Mentoring is not focused on “young people”.

This may seem strange because in the music business, my primary music recording and production customers tended to be twenty-somethings — for demo and album projects.

Life Coaching and Mentoring is very different — age does matter.

I’m talking about actual life experience — and the ability to trust that experience to clarify the difference between what you believe — and what your friends or parents believe.

My personal experience with 20-somethings has been that they tend to be fearful of trusting their true feelings about things.

You can have a very lucid conversation — come to a logical conclusion — and the person with the least life experience — becomes fearful of accepting their own conclusions. They are afraid of their own truth.

They will still give more consideration to what their friends will think — rather than what is right for their life.

Thankfully this immature approach to living life tends to dissipate as you get older.

Maybe you finally realize that your friends aren’t going to “jump into the grave for you” because you gave them so much power over how you lived your life.

So, with a few exceptions of course — obviously there are young people who are mature and trust themselves — I’ve found the most successful people — with Life Coaching and Mentoring — have achieved a certain self-trust which comes with personal life experience.

It’s not surprising that the further someone gets — in time and experience — from the influences of their parents and peers — the more successful they become with how they live their lives.

Trying to explain this truth to someone who already knows everything and has a circle of friends who will back that claim — may not be the best use of my time and energy — I’d rather let time and their own life experience make — and win — the “maturity” argument for me.

-Bob Baran