Welcome to the “solutions generation”

Converting frustration to new identities

I think it is possible that we underestimate the proactive commitment and resolve required to show grace in the face of challenges. To stand strong and find our way when we are not sure where things are going.

Seems to me that every generation has faced its unexpected twists and turns and battles. Millennials and Gen X, for example, unexpectedly met the 2008 recession. Tough. Well-educated graduates with no job prospects (and in the States often student loans). Prime earning years, especially for people with young families, further damaged by lost housing and savings values.

As humans, we eventually found solutions: When you look back on it, the 2008 recession largely drove emergence of the “gig economy” – platforms helping people offer or share services and talents. Think AirBnB, Uber, Slack, WhatsApp. Quite some others. All founded in 2008 or 2009. New business models serving new market niches. Big markets now that we nearly take for granted.

Moving along about a decade and a half later, enter the COVID19 pandemic. Suddenly and entirely un-foreseeably for all generations, the entire world stayed home. As we all know, huge stress weathered by all of us. Yet on the look back, it also created an explosion of demand for digital collaboration, virtual event production, cybersecurity, cloud administration, and IT support for remote workers. Not to mention telehealth and delivery services for all of those ecommerce orders. Think Zoom, Peloton, Netflix, Klarna among others.

Nobody says these experiences were fun. All of them tackled us unexpectedly. Outcomes uncertain for uncomfortably long periods.

What’s to me fascinating now related to inevitable unexpected challenges: the Baby Boomers. They didn’t anticipate being so healthy and active at “retirement age” – which most of them are reaching – and the result that a meaningful life needs a different, longer roadmap. That it also needs new mindsets and visual images as they cringe at the old stories.

The identity and persona of age has changed. It will be the Boomers who drive new visible solutions. In this regard, I find increasing happiness. We all benefit from new emerging niches.

Yet it takes time. We are still in the early years of the challenge, or perhaps by now the messy middle. We Boomers encounter uncertainty and irritation and fear and disappointments (not to mention annoying old fashioned questions about retirement). Handling ourselves requires proactivity and experimenting and often some strength to show calm grace when finding new options. The courage to stand visibly for a different identity.

Yet take a conscious look around you – it is indeed already happening.

We will create better and more relevant images of age for the Gen Xers, Millennials and beyond.

Yet let’s face it, they may not truly realize the value. Because fast-forward a decade or so later, they will get to drive new solutions to their own unexpected challenges. And take the new identity we created nearly for granted, building on it forward.