Getting on in your career when you’re getting on in your years

WHICH birthday makes you think you are “getting on”? Or is it an event such as being passed over for a promotion?

Maybe a child becomes an adult, or your first grandchild appears. Perhaps an illness takes a bit more toll than any sickness has done before.

We all get red flags about our stage in life at some point. They are usually a shock. So far you have been healthy, happy, very busy, full of ambition and vitality. Retirement has seemed so far away that you have given little thought to your finances in old age, to doctors, hospitals or dying.

Most people start to come to terms with their mortality at about 50. Often, the cause is stagnation at work. You were probably never going to get the very top job but a seat on the board was almost certain (you thought) and becoming senior manager was considered a given by everyone.

The nudge that tells you life is moving on makes you think about the reality of your next step. Or have you already taken it by default?

If you have a pension, you and the company that will provide it are in a trap. It may be fur-lined, but it is still a trap. They will be reluctant to fire you if they are decent people; you will be reluctant to leave if you are fairly comfortable.

That was largely the old style of employment. Today, pensions are changing and continuity of employment has gone out the window for most people. Brisk changes of jobs for the young are now de rigueur and, even for the older person, being settled until retirement is no longer regarded as likely.

You are perhaps comfortable but a little restless. You ask yourself, “Is this where it really ends?” You throw wistful glances at those who have gone on to make more of their lives in their 60s, 70s, 80s and, now, even 90s. Eventually, usually because someone else’s plight suggests it, you ask yourself the gnawing question, “Am I un-promotable?”

The first thing to know is that luck plays a big role in success

Before you try to answer this, it is important to remember that there is a large element of luck in everyone’s career. 

We tend to think the successful deserve it, just as we assume that the less successful are responsible for their fate. Certainly we contribute to our success or failure, but so do circumstances and so do other people, often illogically. 

If you are not as successful as you expected to be, don’t ever adopt the view that it was your fault. Look for the lessons (some people call them mistakes – I prefer “lessons”). Apply them when you can. Be grateful the situation is not worse. It easily could be.

Harness your experience; know your skills and play to your strengths

Whatever else you may have or not, you can claim plenty of experience. It’s not the only thing in life, but it is valued. 

You now need to know how to apply it. When wisely interpreted for a different situation from the one in which you got it, experience can be a valuable aid to planning and correcting. It is dangerous if applied literally and thoughtlessly. 

An “EAT” (“experience applied thoughtfully” – its mnemonic tells you what it brings you!) programme is invaluable at this stage and second in importance only to knowing what your purpose is. Those with purpose live longer and healthier lives than those who retire.

You need to line up your skills, too. You should know them already. It is astonishing that so many people don’t – they tend to remember the areas in which they are weak. 

While it is never too late to improve on weaknesses, it is always easier and more beneficial to make better use of your strengths. A simple example of this is the grandparent who discovers, when telling stories to his or her grandchildren, that they are creative. Older people’s ability to create is at least as good as that of young people, but in different areas. We are going to need children’s stories to tell the young for a long time yet. We should be creating better and new ones.

Communication, and reading people

Original writing may seem to be threatened by artificial intelligence, but it is still a necessary and prolific form of teaching. Education, even in a formal sense, is a gift for the more experienced person.

Our present curricula don’t generally educate; they teach people to pass exams. That will change, but like all education changes it will be agonisingly slow. You can put yourself ahead of the pack if you use your own life and learning to colourfully hand on the secrets of reading people – a skill more urgently needed every day.

Another big gap appearing in our social structures is the ability to communicate feistily without fighting. The world may be on the brink of international war but the peace we all crave starts with communication in our homes and with our neighbours. Adapting skills and experiences to produce a more socially equable life may seem to be the job of religious clerics. It isn’t any more. It is the job of all of us, especially those with a sound worldly background.

Do companies and countries “get on in age” too?

What I have written about so far here is the individual. 

There are multiple ways in which anyone of any age can contribute to the welfare and success of their fellow humans. None of the ways I have suggested will make you rich, but they can make you comfortable. 

The old are often expected, inevitably, to help people pro bono and they certainly do so. If you have a skill of the sort I have mentioned, and your ability to add and subtract is still working, you can also make a modest business out of any of the things I have suggested. 

Moreover, today there are charitable sources of funding which not only finance what you want to do but can give you a reasonable income as well. 

“Not for profit” doesn’t mean “not for money”.

Companies and countries can take the same approach. If somewhere is known as a happy country, it can teach other countries how to become happier. Goodness knows there is great enough need for that today. If another place is known for its technological skills, it can infuse countries of like-minded citizens with the precision and excitement of technology. Great agricultural businesses can teach an understanding of the planet and its productive ability that has been almost lost in the rush to chemicalise everything.

The food and beverage business is perfectly poised to help people eat for life instead of for excess. Alcohol producers already devote effort to make drink a joy instead of an obliteration. If string was your commercial life, invent a fishing net that preserves rather than strangles.

The message is clear. Notwithstanding the need for efficient commercialisation – indeed, perhaps because of it – the world is missing many of the joys of life. A rough and tumble first half to beat the opposition and provide for those you must is not the end of the line.

In fact, it can be the start of a new and even more rewarding journey. If it benefits others as much as you, it will give you happiness. Which is just what we are looking for.

The writer is founder and chair at Terrific Mentors International