Christian Ray Flores here, inspired by several deep conversations with friends who are doing new things in midlife.
I’m writing this at age 57 and have a PhD in starting over, having been a refugee and immigrant several times over.
So I speak from experience.
The after-50 version of starting over was by far my favorite.
If you’re reading this while contemplating a change, this may be the most valuable read this week.
There are three classic objections to starting over after 50, and we’ll address them one by one:
Why another career or job after 50 isn’t the safe move people say it is.
Why “It’s too late for me” is a lie from Satan.
Why building your own thing your way is the smartest thing you can do.
latest xponential podcast
I explore the concept of creating your own luck. I’m not a manifest-your-dreams kind of guy, but I’ve seen too much not to believe there are pretty down-to-earth reasons why some people have all the luck while others just don’t.
Why Some People Are Always Lucky (And Others Aren’t).
back to today’s post…
Why another job after 50 isn’t the safe move people say it is
I’d like to point out the less obvious answer, beyond the common reasons like ageism and the real-life economics of hiring someone expensive who is unlikely to work with the fervor of a well-paid indentured servant.
Here it is: any job, even a well-paid one, is fundamentally about helping someone else build their thing.
It is about compliance, not creativity.
Which of the two fits better with a lifetime of experience, mastery, and wisdom?
You already know the answer.
Another job is not as safe as people say it is because it doesn’t leverage the best you have to offer.
I’ve run a business for most of my life, but I did have a part-time job for a long time, which I enjoyed. By the end, the compliance piece clashed with the desire for more creativity.
I loved the people and what we were building, but ultimately I had to move on.
A job, or even staying in the same career, in your 50s may actually be the most unsafe choice if it keeps your creativity and mastery from reaching their full potential.
Which leads us to the second common objection.
Why “It’s too late for me” is a lie from Satan
I’ll spare you the long list of iconic people who started the thing we know them for in midlife. You can Google those.
What I’ll tell you is that as your desire to hustle goes down (the curve of “fluid” intelligence), you have the opportunity to ride the second curve: crystallized intelligence.
Your ability to recognize patterns, see around corners, and avoid costly mistakes makes this the rarest and most value-creating season of life.
The lie that bold new moves are for the young is exactly that: a lie.
Living out this lie is like sowing and watering a field and then deciding not to collect the harvest.
Instead of buying into it, you can jump off the hustle-filled fluid intelligence wave and hop onto the wisdom-driven crystallized intelligence.
Your wisdom, character, and vision will get you further than you imagined if you let them.
For more about navigating midlife, check out this vid.
Things have dramatically changed in the last 40-50 years. The old playbook has to be reconsidered.
Our grandparents were genuinely old in their 50s. Our generation is generally peaking and has at least 15-20 years of active building ahead of it.
The trick is to capitalize on the wave of crystallized intelligence and put it to good use.
Why building your own thing your way is the smartest thing you can do
With maturity comes extreme clarity. You become very clear about who you are and what you want, and you lose the capacity to delay building the life that fits what you value.
Creativity, freedom, and owning your time become non-optional.
You simply don’t get those with another job, even a high-position one.
It becomes very clear that you may have spent decades building someone else’s name, and it’s time to build your own.
A personal brand is not about attention or vanity; it’s about becoming known and trusted by more people outside of your immediate circles.
Visibility beats ability every time, because ability doesn’t matter if the people who need you most don’t know you exist.
A personal brand gives you opportunities and choices like nothing else out there. There’s no greater ROI than investing in yourself.
Starting your own thing can be scary; it’s uncertain by definition.
But it’s the smartest thing you can do, because on the other side of the uncertainty and learning a set of new skills are the freedom, fulfillment, impact, and income you know you want.
The social media boom has sold us a myth of the 20-year-old college dropout startup founder as the norm. It’s actually the exception.
One recent study shows that the average founder age in the 1,000 fastest-growing new ventures is 45, and a 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times more likely to reach upper-tail growth than a 30-year-old.
This makes total sense. You have learned your lessons, crystallized your values, and have the skills and lived experience required to build something.
You get to decide what to do, how to do it, and how big to build it, based on your priorities, passions, and the people you want to spend most of your time with.
Last year, I spent 3 months in the tropics with my beloved Deb, our happy place. We helped clients make several major breakthroughs. I took my family and a group of friends to spend time with some of the poorest of the poor in Mozambique at our Ascend Academy.
We share a life-changing trip with friends to the most breathtakingly beautiful place I’ve ever visited: Alphonse Island in the Seychelles.
Starting your own thing is risky. That’s absolutely true. We’ve had some high highs and low lows this last year as well.
Life is risky; it’s more a choice of which risk you find acceptable.
To me, the real risk is not taking the risk.
The unacceptable scenario is where you slowly dim your light and actually accelerate aging.
I have friends, who I love and whose light is most definitely dim. The hardest thing for me is to know that this was a choice.
If you’ve read this far, you may find this unacceptable as well.
I’m opening 3 windows this week for a 1:1 strategy call about what building a personal brand would look like for you. You can claim a slot here.
Send this to someone who needs to read it.