Age. Is. Relative.

One invaluable lesson I’ve learned in the years that I’ve been working in the “Aging” world is that AGE IS RELATIVE.

More specifically, OLDER AGE IS RELATIVE.

I was reminded of that the other day while I was watching the Baltimore Orioles play the Tampa Bay Rays on television.

The announcers were commenting on the Orioles’ addition of all-star slugger Pete Alonso to their line-up this year. In addition to being an excellent first baseman, Alonso has made a name for himself over the past few years for his perennially outstanding performance at Major League Baseball’s annual Home Run Derby.

That said, their comments were not focused on Alonso’s contributions on the field. Instead, they were focused on the value of his contributions in the locker room: his leadership and experience; his mentorship and encouragement of his younger teammates; and, his maturity and work ethic both during practices, as well as at gametime.

Pete Alonso is 32-years-old.

In most other workplaces, he’d still be considered somewhat of a “youngster.” But in the Major Leagues, he’s not only a veteran, he’s an OLD veteran.

The same holds true for all the male professional sports leagues. In fact, the average age of male professional soccer, basketball, hockey, baseball, and football players is YOUNGER THAN 30-YEARS-OLD.

But what the coaches, managers, and chief executives of these teams understand is that OLDER PLAYERS CONTINUE TO BRING VALUE TO THEIR TEAMS REGARDLESS OF THOSE PLAYERS’ “ADVANCED” AGE.

If only the same held true for their counterparts outside the field of athletics.

Research shows that an intergenerational workplace is MORE CREATIVE, MORE PRODUCTIVE, and MORE PROFITABLE.

Yet business leaders—and, in particular, corporate hiring managers—continue to allow the black cloud of ageism to cast its giant shadow across workplaces worldwide.

Unlike the field of professional athletics in which careers are frequently limited by injury and/or declines in physical ability over time, the skills of participants in most other fields of endeavor continue to INCREASE over time as workers gain more knowledge, experience, and responsibility.

And contrary to popular (read: ageist) belief, their ability to continue to learn, excel, and contribute does NOT diminish with older age.

Case in point, when I started my career in advertising in 1981 the age of 21, everything was pretty much done manually. Copy was written on paper and/or typewriters (granted, they were IBM Selectrics, but still). Designs were drawn by hand with felt tip pens, T-squares, rulers, and markers on oversized drawing pads. Radio commercials were recorded on reel-to-reel tape and edited by hand with a single-edged razor blade. And television commercials were shot on film.

We corrected our mistakes with erasers and white-out. LOTS of white-out.

In fact, it wasn’t until about 1990 that actual computers entered our workplace. And those of us who’d previously been doing everything by hand now had to teach ourselves new ways of working.

That’s right. WE HAD TO TEACH OURSELVES.

And we have repeated this upskilling process time and time again as technology has become more and more advanced over the past 45 years.

Were we technically “digital natives”? NO. Our birth dates belie that distinction.

But the fact is we were computer literate and digitally-competent LONG BEFORE the so-called digital natives were.

More importantly, as we were required to shift from manual work to automated work to digital work, we developed invaluable soft skills like adaptability, tenacity, patience, and teamwork.

These are skills we have carried with us as we’ve climbed corporate ladders, been given more responsibility, and continued to hone our craft—skills that have only grown as we’ve aged and acquired more experience, rather than diminished.

It’s no secret that individuals can learn a number of important life lessons from sports: How to be a team player. How to persevere. How to win—and lose—gracefully. How to not only learn from your mistakes but move past them.

But the corporate world could stand to learn a lesson from the sports world, as well.

Like the intangible value that older workers can bring to a workplace. The same value that veteran players bring to locker rooms, ice rinks, basketball courts, gridirons, soccer pitches, and baseball diamonds across the country.

And the value Pete Alonso brings to the Baltimore Orioles’ clubhouse.

The value that comes from EXPERIENCE.