For most of my life, I underestimated the value of experience.

I thought if I was smart enough, worked hard enough and had access to the right information, I could learn just about anything and do just about anything.

To some extent, I still believe that.

But at 54, I see experience very differently than I did at 34.

There are things you begin to recognize only after you’ve lived through enough decisions, mistakes, successes, relationships, businesses, good seasons and bad ones.

Patterns become easier to see.

You get a better sense of what matters.

You become a little less impressed by things that used to seem important.

And sometimes you can walk into a situation and almost feel where it’s headed because you’ve seen some version of it before.

That’s the valuable side of experience.

But I’m beginning to think experience is a double-edged sword.

Because the same experience that gives you perspective can also quietly convince you that you already know the answer.

That’s where it gets dangerous.

The world I’m operating in today isn’t the same world I built businesses in 20 years ago.

Technology is different. People are different. Communication is different. Work is different. I’m different.

Experience can help me interpret all of that.

But only if I don’t insist on interpreting a changing world entirely through old thinking.

I’m noticing the same thing in my health.

For years I could get away with certain habits. Some probably even served me well for a period of my life.

Now I’m paying much closer attention.

How do I feel?

How much energy do I have?

What am I eating?

How much am I moving?

What actually makes me happier?

What happens when I change one variable and watch the result?

I’m treating it almost like an experiment.

Control the things I can control. Pay attention. Learn. Adjust.

And I’m realizing this applies to much more than health.

Some of our old habits aren’t bad habits.

They’re simply old habits.

They were built for a previous version of us.

The same can be true of friendships, routines, goals, beliefs and even our definition of success.

At this stage of my life, I don’t want to throw away what 50-plus years have taught me.

That would be foolish.

But I also don’t want those 50-plus years deciding what the next 20 are allowed to look like.

Maybe that’s the balance.

Respect your experience enough to learn from it.

Stay curious enough to question it.

I’m working on both.

— Mike