I guess we should cue this up by defining the 20–40–60 rule. We’re going to do that via here:
Originally spoused by actress Shirley MacLaine — and adhered to by Silicon Valley legend, entrepreneur and investor Heidi Roizen — the rule goes something like this: “At 20, you are constantly worrying about what other people think of you. At 40 you wake up and say, ‘I’m not going to give a damn what other people think anymore.’ And at 60 you realize no one is thinking about you at all.” The most important piece of information there, Roizen says: “Nobody is thinking about you from the very beginning.”
Little sad, right? No doubt. She (Roizen) goes on to say “Your boss is not thinking about your, your peers are not thinking about you. You need to think about you.” This shouldn’t necessarily be true, but it is oftentimes true. (All situations are different and no generalization works for all, hence the term “generalization.”)
This is why, as the basic life path (i.e. having a standard job) has changed, we need to look at new ways of thinking about careers.
Although we haven’t necessarily done that either …
