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Are You the Hero, Artist, Prophet, or Nomad? Why Generational Archetypes Matter with Dr. Steven Shepard (Episode #108)

If you’ve ever felt stuck in a problem, and yet sensed that you were just one key insight away from a “Eureka moment,” then you will enjoy today’s interview with Dr. Steve Shepard. In today’s episode, Dr. Shepard helps us see the differences between generations as a tremendous asset, instead of a source of friction. And in the end, we realize that someone who seems a planet away because of their age (young or old) may have just the insight we need to leap forward!


About Our Guest

Dr. Shepard is a sought after global speaker and a master of simplifying the complex through his deep understanding of several disciplines: technology, history, organizational success and story-telling. 

Living abroad and a lifetime of traveling the world has left Dr. Shepard with a 100,000-foot view of what is possible if we can shed some of our limiting beliefs about each other. I interviewed him a few years ago and found his observations about The 4 Repeating Generational Archetypes to be such a transformational concept that I use it almost every day in some way to solve problems. 

So this is where we will start our second conversation with Dr. Shepard. (Find a link to our first interview at the end of this show note.) 

And there’s more: Take a deep dive into Dr. Shepard’s work and you will quickly discover why he says the goal of his work is to inspire, challenge the status quo, and to take our thinking in new directions. He’s also a photographer, podcaster, futurist, amature naturalist, and the author of over 90 books. 

To put it simply, Dr. Shepard is a life-long student and a teacher of the power of “communications.” 

I use that word in the very broadest sense, because Dr. Shepard’s work could fill volumes about the physical technology aspect of communications as well as the interpersonal, give and take, end of things. 

And that’s exactly what he expands on for us in this episode when he introduces us to each other;  Millennials to Boomers, Gen Z to Gen X and every possible combination of the four. 

We could be choosing to embrace our differences, and oh the magic we might find there. 

Enjoy! 

Resources

Show Notes

[00:00- 04:45] OPENING

[04:46- 10:05]

  • Law of Large Numbers
  • Four Generational Archetypes
  • Silent generation
  • Baby Boomer generation
  • Generation X
  • Millineal 
  • Plural
  • How do you want to be rewarded?

 [10:06- 16:59]

  • Generation stuff
  • “Never miss a good chance to shut up”
  • The differences between generations
  • Baby boomers- the institution of memory

[16:00- 31:02]

  • Chip Conley
  • Cognizant of context
  • Context element that is often left-out
  • How baby-boomers are raise?
  • The gist of differences of four generational archetypes
  • Silent generation (1925-1945) roughly
  • Baby boomer (1946-1964) or so
  • Gen-X (1965- 1981)
  • Millenial (1982-2004)
  • Silent generation- 56 million
  • Baby boomers- 76 million
  • Gen-X – 19 million
  • Millinial- 94 million
  • Plurals (2005-2025) the repeat of silent generation

[31:03- 43:12]

  • The Greatest Generation
  • Multi-generational family and organization
  • Rules of engagement vary by generation
  • Awareness of generational differences
  • People do things differently
  • Confirmation bias
  • We live in terror of being wrong
  • “But” means no
  • Each generation that younger than you are will inherit the workplace
  • Blind spot (scotoma)
  • Harnessing the generation

 [43:13- 46:05] BREAK

[46:06- 01:02:39]

  • Dr. Shepard has authored 97 books
  • Meaning of work-life balance for each generation
  • The great reckoning
  • Recipe of severely distrust company
  • The painted house story

[01:02:40- 01:14:12]

  • Mental healthcare for generational archetypes
  • Brene Brown
  • Tribalism as opposed to communalism
  • “My job is find extraordinary things on ordinary people”- Charles Corell
  • Everybody has a story to tell
  • There’s no copyright on how people think
  • We should not assume where people are going when they start talking
  • The American-African man

[01:14:13- 01:18:04]

  • Resources
  • The Natural Curiosity Project podcast
  • Mike Rowe
  • The pole reversal
  • The Nation We Knew

[01:18:05- 01:18:28] CLOSING

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