We’ve learned to hear “tip of the iceberg” as a warning. Danger below. Hidden problems. But what if the depth is the promise?

Someone moves on at work, and in steadying the ship, you discover people around you with greater skill and commitment than you knew. The loss didn’t create them – it revealed them. You were standing on more solid ground than you realized, and the most valuable people are your mature sagers. They become your leading edge.

Usually people see age and assume dull. Worn down. Time to step back. But the iceberg’s edge sharpens with movement, not despite it.

Vintage leaders with their years of expertise aren’t dead weight – they’re a driving force. Pattern recognition that cuts through noise. Judgment that carves with precision to what matters. Steadiness that holds position when others drift.

As a wisdom maker, you’re not soft mass. You’re the breaking edge.

Here’s the physics: the tip of the iceberg doesn’t exist in spite of the depth. It exists because of it. The mass below creates the buoyancy that drives the edge forward. Your years and life experience aren’t dragging you down – they’re the power that pushes your point through resistance.

Icebergs don’t ask permission. They reshape coastlines. They carve landscapes. They change what they encounter through sheer sustained force.

Your solidity isn’t passive – it’s anchored power. The kind that lets you lean into resistance without breaking apart. Younger leaders might have some speed, but speed without mass deflects at first contact. Your depth is what allows you to stay the course when pressure hits and drive through while others scatter.

Organizations drowning in complexity need people who can see the pattern.

Teams spinning in reaction need the calm that comes from having survived worse.

Movements need the wisdom that only comes from having failed, learned, and built again.

So stop accepting the narrative that positions you as legacy, kept at a respectful distance while the “real work” happens elsewhere. You’re not the archive. You’re the leading edge – the precision laser beam – the part that meets resistance first and reshapes what it touches.

Your depth isn’t there to make others comfortable. It’s there to carve through what needs changing.

The question isn’t whether they see your value.

The question is: what are you ready to reshape?

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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This matters too – Vintage Value: Your Increasing Worth.

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