Andy Rooney's Career Leadership Lesson
Andy Rooney's Career Leadership Lesson - Whether someone watched CBS (Bill Gates, and the millions of people who never retire fully understand the significance of reason in examining and participating in life, and in developing a successful career. They espouse new ideas, long for new things, new relationships, constantly discovering new interests, escaping from their boring routines. Andy Rooney was certainly one of those people!
Andy Rooney will be certainly remembered for his humor and inventiveness that caught and captivated the interest of millions of Americans. He will also be remembered for his eagerness to continue working way passed the normal retirement time—He died at 92, one month after he retired from CBS; and that’s where his career leadership lesson is:
Pursuing a successful career isn’t about money and power. It is about examining life, engaging life with vengeance, through reason.
As we discussed in a recent piece, this lesson isn’t new. It exemplifies the First Golden Rule on Living the Good Life, derived by ancient Greek philosophers and most notably those of Plato through the voice of his hero Socrates. Living life is about examining life through reason; nature’s greatest gift to humanity. The importance of reason in sensing and examining life is evident in all phases of life; from the infant who strains to explore its new surroundings to the grandparent who actively reads and assesses the headlines of the daily paper. Reason lets human beings participate in life, to be human is to think, appraise, and explore the world, discovering new sources of material and spiritual pleasure.
People like Andy Rooney, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the millions of people who never retire fully understand the significance of reason in examining and participating in life, and in developing a successful career. A properly examined life protects people against living a life as spectators. It bestows the opportunities that accompany every sunrise and it does so even for those who are no longer in their youth.
People, who continue to explore life fully, even though they may be advanced in years, can still discover that something new awaits them everyday regardless of age–a new place to travel, a new book to read, and new people to meet. The key to unleashing the potential of reason is attitude. The person who approaches life with a child-like wonder is best prepared to defy the limitations of time, is more “alive,” more of a participant in life at the age of sixty or even ninety-two than the average teenager.
via: forbes
