From Strength to Strength

Video Review

Lasting happiness comes from embracing change and finding new ways to grow as you move through different stages of life.
Letting go of past achievements and focusing on developing new strengths leads to deeper fulfillment and purpose.
Prioritizing relationships, wisdom, and inner growth helps you create a more meaningful and satisfying second half of life.

A famous guy on a plane is overheard telling his wife he’d be better off dead
Striver’s curse = people who strive to be excellent at what they do, finding their inevitable decline terrifying
Stein’s Law = if something cannot go on forever, it will stop
You can make the inevitable change a source of strength

In practically every high-skill profession, decline sets in sometime between late 30s and early 50s
The more accomplished you are in your career, the more pronounced the decline is
For writers, the average decline is from 40 to 55
We’re experts at denial who tend to ignore our decline
The prefrontal cortex is the first to develop and the first to decline
The prefrontal cortex degrades in middle age
- Rapid analysis and creative innovation suffers
- Some specific, once-easy tasks become hard
- More easily distracted
- Recall of names and facts suffers
People who were more successful feel the decline more strongly

As people get older, they almost never become less articulate
With age, people get better at combining and utilizing complex ideas
2 kinds of intelligence
- Fluid intelligence = the ability to reason, think flexibly, and solve novel problems
- Crystallized intelligence = the ability to use a stock of knowledge learned in the past
Cicero’s beliefs about older age
- Old age should be dedicated to service, not goofing off
- Our greatest gift later in life is wisdom
- Our natural ability at this point is to counsel (advising & teaching others)
What you get in the second wave is more valuable than what you get in the first
A decline in fluid intelligence doesn’t mean you’re washed up

Objectification = reducing someone to one or two enviable characteristics
💡 We recognize that objectification of others is wrong, but we can do it to ourselves, too
“Maybe I would prefer to be special than happy.” (People who think this are addicts)
Workaholism = the compulsion or the uncontrollable need to work incessantly
3 questions therapists generally use to diagnose workaholism
- Do you usually spend your discretionary time in work activities?
- Do you usually think about work when not working?
- Do you work well beyond what is required of you?
Pride is sneaky (it hides in good things
💡 Many success addicts feel like losers when they see someone else who is more successful

In the East, art is already there waiting to be released (vs. in the West, it’s a blank canvas that needs something to be added)
Instead of adding things tonight loves, figure out what’s not working and remove it
Thomas Aquinas
- Came from a wealthy noble family, who was supposed to enter the church but wanted to join the Dominican order
- His family disagreed, and kidnapped him from the Dominicans
- Held him hostage for over a year and tried to break his faith (once chased a prostitute away with a fireplace poker)
- His list of substitutes for God: money, power, pleasure, honor
- 🗣️ Play “What’s My Idol?”
Satisfaction = continually getting what you want
Success = continually having more than others
Failing = having less
We become used to what we have (homeostasis)
🔑 Our resistance to less is even more powerful than our desire for more
🔑 New definition of satisfaction = what you have / what you want

People will forget you (people move on)
Stressing over the future squanders the present
Desensitization = confronting our discomfort with decline and death by thinking about it often
You don’t have to face decline alone

Trees that grow in groves (aspen, redwoods) have intertwined root systems that give them strength
Humans are naturally interconnected - biologically, emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, and spiritually
Isolation is unnatural
7 big predictors of being happy
- Smoking
- Drinking
- Healthy body weight
- Exercise
- Adaptive coping style
- Education
- Stable, long-term relationships
💡 Lonely people feel like they are the only ones who feel lonely
Loneliness doesn’t come from physical isolation but from inability to make deep human connections
Marriage only accounts for 2% of subjective well-being later in life (the important thing is relationship satisfaction)
🔑 The secret to happiness is not falling in love, it’s staying in love with
Your marriage cannot be your only true friendship
Women tend to have more real friends, men tend to have more “deal friends” (based on utility, do each other favors)
Action Item: Do something to build a friendship
📚 How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton Christensen

Vanaprashta = the stage of life where we pull back from our professional duties
Failure to move from the previous stage (grihastha) often is because of love for the things of the world
💡 Interest in religion and faith rises as we age
We resist any deviation from our self-concept because it provokes feelings of uncertainty
🗣️ Pilgrimages (Camino de Santiago, Way of Saint James)
It’s your road to walk, but others may walk it with you

💡 Paul’s thorn in the flesh may have been a neurological disorder (seizures)
🔑 Your weakness (your loss or decline) can be a gift to others
You can use inevitable failures as a source of deep human connection
You never really know what kind of impact your work will have had
🗣️ Stephen Colbert and being grateful (plane accident) - “love the thing you most wish had not happened”)
🗣️ Cancer diagnosis changing perspectives

Liminality = the time between work roles, organizations, career paths, and relationship stages
📚 Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age by Bruce Feiler
Suffering during transitions can create meaning in life that imposes a sense of stability in future transitions
While transitions are inevitable, a crisis is not
One of the biggest mistakes people make in their careers is to treat work primarily as a means to an end
Hedonia vs. Eudaimonia
- Hedonia = feeling good
- Eudaimonia = living a purpose-filled life
The goal = seeking a life that is a balance of enjoyable and meaningful (an interesting life)