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

Brooks says that research illustrates how professional decline is very real, affecting most people by middle age. Brooks begins with the story of Charles Darwin, whose work on the theory of evolution exemplified the peak of his professional life. Darwin published his book on evolution when he was 50, after working on it since his twenties. When he died, some two decades later, he felt unhappy and unfulfilled. He was, Brooks writes, “successful by the world’s standards, washed up by his own” (3).

In every profession that requires advanced skills, decline takes place sooner than people are willing to admit. World-class athletes are an obvious example, but decline happens cognitively as well as physically. Research on Nobel Prize winners in science shows that the greatest accomplishments take place when people are in their twenties and thirties, with individuals showing a fairly steep decline in the decades that follow. Groundbreaking discoveries are rare once people enter their forties. The same trend holds, though at slightly older ages, for scientists who are not Nobel laureates. The same is true for doctors, entrepreneurs, office workers—just about everyone. Statistics show that in creative fields, peak performance comes roughly 20 years after beginning a career.

The reason this happens involves the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex develops last as one grows up and plays an important role in what’s called executive function, which involves things like decision-making, working memory, and self-control, allowing people to make plans and follow through. Studies show that the prefrontal cortex also appears to be the first area of the brain to decline, making it harder to multitask, ignore distractions, and analyze things. Memory also starts to degrade, causing people to blank on even names and facts that they know well.

The effect is greater on people who are ambitious and at the top of their field. People who are accustomed to getting attention and feeling that their work is meaningful fear becoming irrelevant. The higher one climbs, the farther one falls. Research has shown that people who reach success earlier in life tend to be unhappier in old age. They are not satisfied with past achievements but seek to attain more—at the same time that their abilities are decreasing. Often, they overwork to compensate, ignoring and thus harming relationships, which can make them feel worse.

Brooks sees three options: denial, resignation, or transformation. This book is about following the third option.

Brooks explores the positive aspects of one’s later years. Here, he reveals a separate trajectory that improves with age. Certain skills continue to progress even as innovative ability decreases. These skills include vocabulary, which expands, and the ability to synthesize, use, and explain complex ideas.

Brooks discusses how the psychologist Cattell studied this phenomenon and divided intelligence into “fluid intelligence” and “crystallized intelligence.” The first involves problem-solving and results in innovative thinking, while the second is the accumulated knowledge from a lifetime of learning.

Brooks interprets Cattell’s work to mean: “When you are young, you have raw smarts; when you are old, you have wisdom” (27). Wisdom affects certain professions favorably. For example, historians’ peak performance is about twice the norm, coming almost 40 years after the start of one’s career. In general, teaching is helped by crystallized intelligence. Older people also make wise mentors to the generations behind them.

When plotted on a graph whose axes are age and intelligence level, fluid intelligence rises for the first 20 years of a career, on average, and then declines. However, the plot points for crystallized intelligence begin later and pick up in middle age, continuing to rise for some decades.

This second curve offers hope to older workers. The catch is that they must know that it exists and be willing to embrace it. Brooks provides the example of Johann Sebastian (J. S.) Bach, whose story is a counterpoint to that of Darwin in the previous chapter. Bach was a musical genius and highly prolific composer. One of his many children, Carl Philipp Emanuel (C. P. E.), also became a famous musician. As musical tastes changed, C. P. E. became more famous than his father. Instead of fading away or becoming bitter, J. S. worked happily on composing The Art of the Fugue in the last decade of his life. It was a kind of manual for performing baroque music, his specialty. Rather than innovating, he taught. Today, the reputation of the elder Bach outshines that of his son. The rest of the book is about how to ride the second curve like Bach did.

Brooks examines the first of three forces preventing people from jumping to the second curve of crystallized intelligence: being addicted to work, which Brooks compares to alcoholism and substance use disorders. For strivers, people are addicted to the glory that constant work can bring them. One woman working in finance whom Brooks interviewed concluded: “Maybe I would prefer to be special rather than happy” (44). Working so much, Brooks says, is detrimental to relationships and puts a strain on one’s family.

For some people, placing work above all else is a way to avoid depression. Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill fought depression and overworked to compensate. For others, overwork is the result of self-objectification, or “judging one’s own self-worth—for good or ill—based on job performance or professional standing” (54). People fall for an image they have of themselves as competent, successful, and esteemed by peers, and it becomes hard to break out of that.

It’s natural to be proud of the work we do, Brooks says, but this can spill over into arrogance. Only recently has pride come to be seen in a positive light; the ancients saw it as a vice. Strivers are often perfectionists and are driven as much by avoiding failure as by working to accomplish something meaningful.

People too often compare themselves to others and worry about where they are in the social and professional hierarchy. When someone is addicted to something, including work, one generally goes through withdrawal when one stops. This keeps many people addicted to work. In order to break out, Brooks concludes, strivers need to admit they have a problem and want to change, which takes a certain amount of humility.