Ready For The (Seemingly) Inevitable Expertise Decline?

I’m waist-deep in Arthur C. Brooks’ From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life (thank you Bob and Neil for the reco).

Honestly, he had me at the first chapter heading: “Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think.”

He posits—with quite a bit of evidence—that in almost every high-skill profession, decline sets in somewhere in the late 30’s to early 50’s (with a couple glaring exceptions: geologists and historians).

Brooks offers three choices for those of us facing decline (read: all of us, even if we don’t feel it yet):

1. Deny, deny, deny and rage against the unfairness of it all.
2. Give in to decline and “experience your aging as an undeniable tragedy”.
3. Accept that what got you here won’t work forever—and build some new strengths and skills.

The last option would seem the only reasonable pivot, yes?

Brooks calls it the second curve. Where we lean into our strengths that age enhances vs. those that decline.

Where we move from fluid intelligence (“the ability to reason, think flexibly and solve novel problems) to crystallized intelligence (“the ability to use a stock of knowledge learned in the past”).

The good news for expertise entrepreneurs is that many of us are already working in senior advisory and mentoring roles requiring crystallized intelligence. Work that we couldn’t have done earlier in our careers.

And if you’re still doing execution or innovative front-line work? It may well be time to consider at least a quarter turn toward advisory.

Decline is coming for us all at some point…

How ready—and positioned—are you for the (seemingly) inevitable? Feel free to weigh in—responses are confidential unless you give me permission to share them. You’ll find the book here if you’d like to give it a read.