"You PEAK at 39" - Harvard Professor Explains Why Your Career Must Evolve With Age

0:00Zhang Z, which I'm sure you know who it is, old philosophers said happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. You agree with that? Yes, but with a caveat. If you walk around saying, I'm not happy, am I happy? Am I happy? I'm not happy. Problem. And Nathaniel Hawthorne one time said, happy or he's purported to a said, he said on the internet, we don't know who said this, but it was a good Nathaniel Hawthorne. He should have said that happiness is like a butterfly. If you sit quietly and might come sit on your shoulder, but you try to catch it, you never will. Right? So what should you do instead? And the answer is you should actually break it down into its macronutrients and pursue a diet rich in the elements of happiness. The parts of happiness are enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the three macronutrients of happiness. The happiest people enjoy their lives. They take satisfaction in their activities and accomplishments, and they know the why of their lives. And they pursue the why of their lives. Don't pursue happiness, pursue enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. And that's

1:04what I teach my graduate students at Harvard. I have a classical leadership and happiness for MBAs, and it's all about how to enjoy your life and career, how to take satisfaction with struggle and hardship in your accomplishments, and how to find the meaning of your life, including in the suffering in your life. In your book, Strength to Strength, you talk about how we peak a lot, younger than people think. Yeah. And you were given the stats, and you said, at this, this sport is stodied to this thing was stodied eight. And then I think you said one of the things that you peak at the end was, was it Professor or teacher 72? I don't know what it was, but it was something that you peak later on because historians historians is what it was that you peak later on. After they do half of their work after age 65, and it's the better half. That was the craziest thing to think about. So walk me through the understanding of peaking in your career. Yeah. So everybody peaks in their career. And when you peak depends on what you emphasize in your work. Certain careers emphasize what we call fluid intelligence. That's problem solving, that's working memory, that's

2:06processing speed. That's like the young lawyer who can solve every case, right? That tends to happen early in your career. That peaks at age 39, then declines. And so if you're all about that fluid intelligence, that's just like smarts, man. That's like street smarts that feral intelligence mixed with a good education that makes you faster and better than everybody else. You're going to peak early. I'm not talking about physical careers like professional sports. Obviously that peaks early because of the physio. I'm talking about mental careers and everybody watching us is in a mental career or they wouldn't be watching the show because it's an idea show. However, some careers, they emphasize more teaching, mentoring, managing, coaching. Those careers peak much, much later because it's based on crystallized intelligence. That's a kind of intelligence that's based on pattern recognition and your ability to articulate complicated and complex ideas. And that starts to increase in your 40s and 50s and 60s and stays high into your 70s and 80s. That's why historians

3:07or what you're doing is you're articulating, you're doing pattern recognition and teaching. That's why they're so good when they're old. That's why in your 20s and 30s, you should be the star litigator in your law firm and in your 50s and 60s, you should be the managing partner. You're actually managing younger lawyers and finding talent. You probably have noticed that you get better and better and better at explaining hard things and that's why you have the show that's really popular in your 40s and it's going to be better in your 50s and 60s. If you still do it, you're probably a better manager in your 40s than you were in your 30s. You're more likely to find great talent and not try to do those jobs in your 40s than in your 30s. That's because you're getting onto your your crystallized intelligence curve. Now, you can actually change your career. I did, you know, when I was in my 30s, I was writing scholarly articles that were so mathematically complex that I can't read them today. It was pure fluid intelligence. Now, I have a podcast and I write a column for hundreds of thousands of people and I write books and I travel around giving

4:09talks and I'm a public educator for people who are not neuroscientists and behavioral scientists and then because I'm on my crystallized intelligence curve. That shows promise as long as I've got my marbles, as long as I'm not demented, I'll be able to do that well, well, well into old age. Do we, does it naturally go and you don't even know you're doing that and you're adjusting naturally or is it something that you have to be intentional about it? You need to be intentional because what will happen is if you're really, really good at something and then you're on the wrong side of that curve and then you're just burning out, you're bummed out. That's what happens to a lot of guys. You'll live in some investment bank in New York and they're working just crazy hours making a ton of money and then they, you notice that they always retire at 49 with $400 million. That, right? And the reason that they've, they retired at 49 is what used to be hard became impossible and what used to be easy became hard and nobody else noticed it but them and they burned out. Can you be specific? Yeah, well, you can be, so it'll be, they'll be doing deals that they

5:12used to be able to just roll through when they were 35 and when they're 45 or 46, they're like, this is a slog. I can't, I can't focus on this. This is less interesting than it used to be. It's fun than it used to be. It's harder than it. Why is my work getting harder? It doesn't make sense. And so they're like, they start looking for an escape route because they think that's their only job. That's what they're all that, so they retire at 49 with a few hundred million bucks in plain and then they dedicate themselves to something stupid like golf or tennis or yoga and then pretty soon their marriage meltdown melts down. They get a good deep tan but their marriage is melting down and they're spending money and their four hundred million dollars becomes two hundred million dollars when your wife leaves, right? And they don't know what happened. They go into this big tail spin and the reason is because they were on the wrong side of their fluid intelligence curve. They didn't jump onto the crystallized intelligence curve. The crystallized intelligence curves when they need to start a business, for example, where they're scouting talent or they need to go into management where they're supervising and teaching younger people or by the way if they're going to

6:16retire, they should go teach at the local business school, teach a class in what they're actually doing and mentor a couple of young people and sit on a couple of boards and do stuff that's or start a podcast for Pete's sake. Do something where they can share knowledge because they're way better at that than they would have been. So are there anomalies to this? I'm sure you're going to say yes. Walk me through the anomalies. Some of these guys that, you know, Elon just became a trillionaire, okay? And he is still building all these other weeks, like two weeks and I used to work 700 billion, but yesterday or two days ago, they now starling. It's going to be competing with AT&T Verizon. And he says, Starling's going to be a trillion dollar. You're revenue. I know business. What? So that itself could be worth, God knows how much money with some of these businesses that he's running. How different are the anomalies? And in that moment for you to, do you know, is there, does it become a moment where you're like, because for me, I feel like I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I don't feel like it's like, oh my God, I can do it as good as I

7:16used to and I can do that. I'm enjoying it, but I'm a builder. I want to be able to build things. If I'm not building things, I'm not having it. If the pressure is all me doing it, I'm not a fan of that, right? I want to be so how do you describe, you know, where the person knows, you know, like I read some of this stuff and I'm like phenomenal. I can't think of how many people that need to read this book. And in some parts is like, I don't know if I relate yet. How do you tell that apart? So you have extraordinarily high fluid intelligence. And that means that you can be on the wrong side of the curve and still be killing it. Right? It's what it comes down to. It's not that you're going to be in the tank. I'll do you 47 47 47. Yeah. It doesn't mean you're in the tank. I mean, 47 is still really young. And if you have an incredibly high and tell fluid intelligence curve, even if you're on the wrong side of it, it's still going to be high and still going to be exciting and still going to be good. But you've got to have plans for what the crystallized intelligence curve looks like. And by the way, you're on it right now. This show is a crystallized intelligence show. You're bringing ideas that are very complex. You're unpacking my ideas right now. You're

8:20extraordinarily good at it. You're probing into big ideas for me as a professor. And then you're translating it when it's not quite clear. You're I'm sure not I want to make sure that everybody is watching this notices the skill that you have. You unpack it a little bit more. And then you stop and you say, what is that? And you ask me to elucidate a little bit more. Why? Because your teacher, you're being a teacher right now. You're motivating a lot of people. I've met a bunch of your young people before we started today. You're not trying to do every one of their jobs on the contrary. And you're not trying to dominate the technology in ways that they can. That would be a bad use of your time and not the right use of your brain. Right. You're actually literally moving on your crystallized intelligence curve. That's the Patrick crystallized intelligence curve that you're getting on. And it's just going to become more and more and more like that. Not everybody knows what that could be. I mean, it turns out that you're really good at podcasting. A lot of people working at golden and sacks. They don't I mean, they wouldn't even know to start on something like that. But there is a crystallized intelligence version of everybody's life. They just need to start thinking

9:22about it. Yeah, that's a good point. Who is the billionaire Rubenstein? What is his name that he started a podcast a few years ago? Rubenstein. They Rubenstein. Yes. We had him on the podcast. He came down here. We did a great. And he's fantastic. His genius. And you see here's a guy that's worked a few billion hours. Like, you know what? I want to start a podcast. And he starts doing his podcast. One of my favorite interviews seen him doing it. And before I was even leaving insurance business, one of my concerns was, what do I do next? So I wasn't going to sell until I knew what I was going to do next. And then one day I got a call from a client that accidentally turned into a consulting engagement. And we did a three hour engagement with this client. And I said, I actually really like this. Awesome. So fun. I couldn't tell you how excited I'd be sitting down going. I can't see. I was at the time when I got the call was six years ago. So I was 41. Yeah. Right on time, man. Right. And it was like, I know exactly what I'm going to do in next. And it was transition going into it. So how would you describe that? If

10:28some imagine somebody, let's let's talk about the person that, you know, I'm at the vault conference. I'm walking around talking to everybody. One of the guys I go to, I said, so, Hey, you seem like you're a little bit down. What's going on when you're doing this person identity audit? Is this bad? I just saw my business for 400 million hours. Exit. It's funny. You're saying 400 million hours. I saw my business. That's so funny. You said 400 million hours. You made me think about this guy. Yeah. He said, I saw my business 400 million hours. And, you know, my wife and I just got a divorce. I've hooked up with more girls than I can tell you. But dude, I am so empty. I'm trying to figure my next thing out. Yeah. Right now. I don't know what the F to do. This is him telling me that. Yeah. You know, so he's kind. So how do you describe it to the person who is going through the face of knowing they're going to have an exit? Transition. Whatever you want to call them. I'm about to sell a business for 100 million, 200 million. But I don't know what the hell to do next. Yeah. And they're freaking out. They're freaking out. So what things would you tell me to do to prepare for that? So it's to a certain extent, it depends on how old you are. If you're 30 and you're

11:28getting that exit because you've been so extraordinarily fortunate and successful in your 20s, then you should be thinking about the next venture. You'll be thinking about the next venture. But if you're in your late 40s or your 50s, for example, and a lot of the people that I talk about who are exceptionally the 400 million dollar guys in their late 40s or 50s, what they're doing is they should be thinking about what they can actually do to build their crystallized intelligence curve. And it usually is a portfolio that looks more or less like the following to begin with, they're really lucky. They don't need a wage. Right. I mean, to be financially independent is an incredible blessing. So if they're actually financially independent, the neck, they can build their portfolio in a better way. It starts off with number one service is actually how am I going to help other people? Now, you find that when you are the reason that you love that consulting gig so much is because you were creating value in somebody else's career and life in business. And that was enormously satisfying. When you see yourself creating value in somebody else's life, it's like, this is one. The angels are saying, it's like, this is so great. It's like this is what, what

12:33God put me on earth is to actually is to help people that I'm successful here. That's number one. So get a couple of mentees. That's the first thing. Not 20, not 50. Don't start a company. A couple of people that you really, really believe in that can because people really want successful mentors. If you got 400 million dollars, people would love your advice and have real mentees. Number one, number two, go teach a class. Go teach a class and what you're good at. Every there's 4,500 colleges and universities in America. Most of them have business education and they all need successful people who can turn what they were good at into classes. Just one class. And by the way, that's hard. That's hard. If you've never taught a class before, getting prepared for a class and the materials and describing what you've always done. And the students will light you up like a Christmas tree on the evaluations on the first time. And it's a big new challenge. But you'll find you're better at it than you thought you were. And you're most of, most people will be like, this is awesome. I love it. I want to be a professor from now on. It's kind of how they think. The third thing is join one nonprofit board. Not 10, one, a cause you deeply care about. Why? Because they need you.

13:39If you're a successful person, nonprofits are catastrophe when it comes to business like activity. They need your philanthropy. More importantly, they need your expertise. Something you want to give to and something that you want to serve for board meetings a year. Just one. So you can really dig in. Not, you know, 36, which is what a lot of people do. And everybody will be asking you when you're ready to exit. Come sit on my board. Come sit on my board. And then one for profit board. So those are the things. Then set up your schedule. Like set it up. I'm going to business like way. So it looks like 15 hours a week, which it won't be. It'll be 40. But it won't be 80. The reason I say 15 is so it doesn't turn into 80. So it turns into 40. Why? Because the number one thing that people were exiting, the thing that they hate, the reason they are exiting, by the way, is there's one thing they all hate about their lives, which is they didn't have time to pee between meetings. They were too busy. They were freaked out about being idle. And so they became too busy. And it was very hard on them cognitively. So actually 15 hours a week means that you can set up your schedule. And if you want to stay at the gym for 90 minutes,

14:43instead of 45 minutes, because you're having a really good workout, you can do it. And if you're having lunch with a friend and you want to have a longer lunch, you can do it. And if your wife is like, I want to spend the afternoon with you and you love your wife, you can do it. You can actually do some of those things without sacrificing your business and feeling like you're being irresponsible. That's really, really, really critical. If you do those things, then it will turn into the next thing. But you've designed it in such a way that your life is better, not worse. When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast. We had the choice to make it cheap. We chose neither. Instead, we chose Tuscanyter. We chose True Italian Craftsmanship, each paired touch by 50 skilled hands. We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail, and we chose the finest quality at every step, introducing the Future Looks Bride collection. Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary.

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