Your 100-Year-Old Self: Insights for Authentic Leadership Today

Who will you be at 100?

I first came across this question outside a primary school classroom in Singapore. It was a question for children.

I found myself wondering why we don’t ask it more often as adults. Not what will I achieve? Not what will my career look like? Just: Who will I be at 100?

A bulletin board outside a primary school classroom in Singapore invites children to reflect on the probability of being active at 100.

Take the question with you sometime.

When you sit in silence. Walk. Run. Swim. Take a long shower. Whatever gets you out of your usual thinking.

Imagine you are 100 years old.

Where are you?

Who is around you?

What are you doing?

What does your body feel like?

What still matters to you?

What have you stopped caring about?

What are you glad you gave your life to?

Don’t try too hard to answer. Let images come. Or fragments. Or nothing at all. You’re not predicting your future. And you don’t need to construct a vision of your life at 100. Just stay with the question. Who will I be at 100?

And perhaps, eventually, ask one more: What does that person know that I already know now?

Image by gpointstudio on Freepik