Havard Business Review’s Dan Pallota quoted from Julia Moulden’s book, RIPE: Rich, Rewarding Work After 50: >

  • I can tell the difference between a customer who has a legitimate gripe with my company and one who is an alcoholic or has anger-management issues. At 25, I thought it was all and always about me.
  • My bullshit meter is highly attuned because I’ve heard a lot of bullshit. At 25 I was naive enough to believe most of what everyone was dishing out.
  • I have the confidence to know that if I don’t understand some new business idea you’re pitching to me it’s not because I’m stupid. It’s because you’re not communicating it well. At 25 I was more prone to point the finger inward.
  • I know that business construction projects cost about twice what you budgeted them to cost. At 25, I was continually shocked and unprepared when costly problems popped up or snags set projects back months.
  • I know that being nice to people and being a good leader are two different things. At 25 I was nice to everyone. And not the best leader.

I suggested in the comments this addition: > My peers and I outnumber everyone else. At 25, people over 50 were few and far between which let me do a lot without someone looking over my shoulder and judging my work.
Which is really a defining difference between Boomers and Millennials: Millennials are coming of age with a lot more older people around then when Boomers came of age. But I’ve also disagreed with Dan Pallota before. The population pyramid image is from here, which looks like it may have been copied out of a newspaper.