As a younger life coach, it is to be expected that people throw the age card at me as an objection to my offer of service.
How can I help others with marriage as someone not married?
How can I help someone with their children as someone who isn't a parent?
How can I coach someone more than twice my age?
Is this arrogance? I wonder to myself. Am I stepping out of my superpowers to pretend to be this elderly sage when I a bit over a quarter of a century-old?
These are good questions for me to confront head-on, so I did.
I realized that experience is a broad term that covers a lot. Allow me to offer you a visual.
Imagine an older man goes to a young doctor.
After checking the older man for various potential problems, he discovers that his patient struggles with his breathing and offers a modest increase to his exercise regimen and suggests some dietary modifications.
The older man starts ranting to the younger doctor: who do you think you are telling me what to do? You are less than half my age! And then he says the magical words: "I am so much more experienced than you!"
Let us examine this statement. Is that true? Is the doctor less experienced than the older man? If you measure it by the sum of experiences, then yes, he is right. However, IF YOU measure THE EXPERIENCES NECESSARY TO OFFER THE SERVICE AT HAND THE DOCTOR IS MASSIVELY CREIDBE, QUALIFIED AND EXPERIENCED. SO NO, THE MAN IS WRONG.
One parallel is that the older man is likely throwing age into the younger doctors' face for the same reason people throw it into mine: THEY DON'T WANT TO MAKE THE CHANGES, SO THEY SCAPEGOAT THE MESSENGER OF THE NEWS.
The parallel that is important for my introspection and decision to stay in the felid of helping Frum men achieve joy, efficiency, and balance in their personal, religious and professional lives is that I do have the experience, training, and education IN THIS AREA to help my clients the same as the doctor for their patients.
Let us learn to see our experience as specific to what is being offered and be honest when we are stating an objection as a defense or as a legitimate inquiry. By doing so, we can all find more areas in our lives that we may have been holding back, not realizing just how qualified we are to help others.