From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

by Arthur C. Brooks

Arthur C. Brooks is a social scientist, professor at both the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and also writes the popular “How to Build a Life” column at The Atlantic. Prior to Harvard, he was president of the American Enterprise Institute for ten years. From Strength to Strength is his 12^th book and was a #1 New York Times bestseller last year. 

Professor Brooks studies happiness and he has found that people over 65 split into two groups as they get old: half get much happier, and half get much unhappier. The unhappy group includes people who have done well in their careers but suffer from the ‘striver’s curse’ which Brooks describes as ‘people who strive to be excellent at what they do [but] often wind up finding their inevitable decline terrifying, their successes increasingly unsatisfying, and their relationships lacking.’ From Strength to Strength provides a way to escape this curse. 

Skills decline as we age and Brooks has found that this happens faster than we think: ‘in practically every high-skill profession, decline sets in sometime between one’s late thirties and early fifties.’ The author provides a range of evidence, for example, financial professionals reach peak performance between the ages of thirty-six and forty, doctors in their thirties, and for scientists, the most common age for great discovery is in their late thirties. On average, ‘the peak of creative careers occurs at about twenty years after career inception.’ 

Cognitive skills change as we age from what Brooks calls ‘fluid intelligence’ to ‘crystallized intelligence.’ Fluid or ‘raw’ intelligence is the ability to reason, think flexibly, and solve abstract problems. It typically peaks in one’s mid-thirties. Crystallized intelligence or ‘wisdom’ is the ability to use a stock of knowledge learned in the past. It grows as we age. ‘When you are young, you can generate lots of facts; when you are old, you know what they mean and how to use them.’ 

Escaping the striver’s curse requires acknowledging one’s decline in skills and jumping to a second curve that repurposes your professional life to rely more on crystallized intelligence. This doesn’t happen by chance and this path means going against many of your striver instincts. It takes work and the earlier you start, the better. From Strength to Strength provides a roadmap, practical tools, and useful examples. While people in their ‘second half of life’ are more likely to read this book, I highly recommend it to strivers in their thirties. 

Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

by David Goggins

I generally don’t listen to audiobooks a second time, but I found that there was so much meat in Goggins' book that once I was through, I started over again.

Goggins' was able to accomplish many feats that most would deem impossible. His rise from experiencing his father’s physical abuse, experiencing prejudice, to accomplishing several goals, like becoming a Navy Seal and an Army Ranger, were truly remarkable feats. To achieve what he did can be viewed as mind over matter. Others might see or view it as selfishness. “Was the juice worth the squeeze”? Like most things in life, both perceptions can be right. Yet, learning about Goggins’ nightmarish beginnings to the feats he has been able to realize provides food for thought. 

Are any of us optimizing our potential through self-awareness, self-discipline, and mental toughness? I suggest few if any have stretched our human potential to the level of Goggins. 

The book is definitely worth a read, and probably more than once.