Make a few friends older and younger than you. Same-age friends can’t teach you everything.

Friends your own age are all facing the same wall at the same time. That shared position is comforting and limited, because nobody in the group has done the next part yet, so the advice is pooled guessing. Someone five years older has already failed at the thing you are about to try. Someone five years younger reminds you what you used to care about and keeps you from getting prematurely cynical.

Build the range on purpose. Talk to the senior on your team, the twenty-five-year-old at work, the cousin who is twelve. One real conversation with each in the next month is enough to start.