The Human Edit: The 50-Year-Old Intern

I turn 50 next year.

And for the first time in my career, I find myself quietly questioning absolutely everything.

Am I still relevant? Can I genuinely keep up with this endless conveyor belt of technology? If my CV was sitting on a desk next to a super-energetic 25-year-old's, would a company see my two and a half decades of experience as a massive asset - or would they just assume I'm stuck in my ways?

When I first came out of university, like most graduates I had absolutely zero experience. But I had the bravado to just go for anything. I threw myself in, learned on the fly, and proved myself by delivering the work.

Fast forward 25 years. I am the most qualified I have ever been.

I know how to find the real story in a business. I know what actually connects with buyers. I have the battle scars to prove it. Yet somehow, I am back to doing the exact same mental gymnastics I did in my twenties - fighting this internal narrative on a loop: Am I still good enough?

If I were an accountant or a lawyer with 25 years of experience, my age would be undeniable proof of my value. I'd be the senior partner everyone defers to.

But marketing is uniquely obsessed with the new. It idolises youth. It worships the latest algorithm, the newest AI tool, the next big platform. It makes you feel like if you don't inherently know how to use every new piece of tech, you've somehow missed the boat.

Here's what I've realised: we spend so much time worrying about how to stand out in a noisy market, but we rarely talk about the silent exhaustion of just trying to hold your place in it.

The technology changes every single week. But human nature doesn't.

Knowing how to actually talk to people, knowing how to spot a weak proposition, knowing when a business is fooling itself - that doesn't come from a software update.

It comes from living through it. And no algorithm has worked out how to replicate that yet.