Be ready for the peaks and valleys in your career – Issue #27

Business Insider published a humbling illustration of the ages at which you peak at a number of things in your life. For example, muscle strength peaks at 25 years old (or later for those of us who were lazy in our 20s and finally started working out in our 40s).

Your vocabulary peaks at 69 (good news!). Your sense of psychological wellbeing peaks at 82 (I’m looking forward to that).

It would be nice to think that our cognitive ability, energy levels, and earning potential could continue to rise until our eventual death. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Or, could they at least reach a plateau and hold steady? I wouldn’t even be upset by a gradual decline.

But, alas, that simply isn’t true. It is good to remember that this data comes from studies that average across numerous individuals. There are certainly outliers who live longer than most, keep physically active longer, maintain a sharp mind until later in life, etc.

There are also things that you can do to slow the decline (e.g., exercise, healthy eating, social activity), or accelerate it (e.g., neglecting your health, drug abuse, treating yourself as if you are “old”).

“Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.”
— Muhammad Ali

Plan for the inevitable

Given that it is what it is, the best you can do is live life well and make plans for the inevitable. One of those plans should be around that peak you can see in your earning potential and career. 

For men, salaries will typically peak in their late 40s. Unfortunately, women will find that their salaries tend to peak in their late 30s.

Note that this time roughly coincides with a decline in information processing ability, a decrease in energy levels, and an increase in the demands on your time from your family. If you’re in your 20s and 30s, you’d better make hay while the sun shines. Aggressively manage your career to maximize your earning potential now.

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
– Stephen King

If you’re already in your 40s, then you are probably seeing some of the signs that indicate a slowdown in your career. Raises aren’t as big or frequent as they used to be. Promotions are few and far between. Layoffs seem to target folks with the longest tenure.

A career shift is required to adjust to your new reality.

Career Transformation

The good news is that some things actually improve with age (e.g., psychological wellbeing and happiness) and some have a much more gradual decline from their peak.

Knowledge declines slowly, and I wonder how much of that is due to old models of education and retirement? I think that the post-Boomer generations won’t ever fully retire and, as such, we will always need to stay engaged and actively learning to keep working.

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is another bright spot in the aging story. It actually peaks as we enter our 60s and we get to enjoy the benefits of our accumulated wisdom. I think some of this is due to perspective and pattern recognition. 

With a great deal of time and experience, you see things from a different and more objective viewpoint than you did when you first encountered them. Decades of experiences also enable faster pattern recognition. You’ve seen it before and you know what comes next.

Given all of this, you can either suffer a slow decline in your primary career, or you can transform your career to take advantage of your remaining strengths. Professional athletes experience this earlier and more acutely than most, given that they peak in performance around age 26. It’s not surprising to see an American football player make the transition to coach or commentator for their 2nd act career. There’s no sense in trying to stay on the field.

Those of us in other professions may not hear the clock ticking as loudly, but it is. You know if your career is no longer behaving like a rocket ship. You know when something has been feeling off for a few years.

You could continue to jump from company to company, and role to role. Maybe there really is a better fit for you, and your career will start taking off again.

Or, maybe it’s time to make that bigger change in your life that you’ve been putting off.

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — C. S. Lewis

Play to your strengths (and reality)

If you take a look at the chart at the top of this article, it’s probably no surprise that many people end up moving out of an independent contributor (IC) role and into leadership. The strengths you used to have that made you a great IC have either faded, or you’re no longer willing to make the sacrifices required (e.g., working 12 hour days and never seeing your family).

Now is the time to reshape your career into a 2nd act that can take advantage of your heightened EQ, decades of experience, and accumulated knowledge and wisdom. Rather than resisting the shifts in your peaks and valleys of performance, you can make the most of your new reality.

Find companies that value what you have to offer. For example, Airbnb hired a 52 year old with deep experience in the hotel industry to be their Strategic Advisor for Hospitality and Leadership.

Find roles that play to your current strengths, are optimized for you who you are becoming, and help you strategically prepare for what you want for your next act.

Careers have a lifecycle and I’ve learned to accept that. We all should have been taught that it is normal. We should have learned that there is a way to gracefully adjust your career as you grow older. Better late than never, though!

No matter how old you are though, there is still so much that you have to offer. You just have to be flexible and willing to adapt to a new way to provide that value.

Remote Jobs

• iOS Developer at Robots & Pencils. They are expanding and looking for an iOS Developer to join their talented and world class robot team. What do they mean by world class? You’ll get to work with one of the developers who built Udacity, and with former lead engineers from major tech companies like Yahoo, Apple, and Google. You are someone who prefers to communicate through code. You love to create and have a strong desire to learn. In fact, you’re the first to rattle off which WWDC video would help your coworker. You can speak to language best practices, understand when it’s reasonable to swizzle methods, have a strong understanding of generics and protocol oriented programming, and know the advantages and tradeoffs between closure/blocks and delegates. You’re also diligent about meeting allocated budgets and can work within time constraints, but you will never sacrifice quality. Apply Now

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