Aging Is Awesome
How old are you? And how old do you feel? Take the quiz!
I’m 49, but apparently my subjective age is 45. I hoped the test would tell me I was 30, but sadly that didn’t materialize. Yet I still feel mostly young at heart, almost naïve in so many ways, trying to fight off, to the best of my fading abilities, the inevitable, deep-seated cynicism that comes with experience.
Aging is a slow process, but the realization that you’re getting old comes suddenly, almost overnight: it’s when you realize that your worst decisions are behind you and not ahead of you (while secretly hoping that this is not true).
Aging is for all of us. In the future, we will spend more time getting older. Moreover, the pandemic has made us more aware of the vulnerabilities of many people in our societies, including our elders. This sense that the world might be rigged against you, or is no longer yours at all, is one they share with everyone who is marginalized.
Nowhere is this more prevalent than in business’ cult of youth. While there are initiatives such as reverse mentoring and while people over 50 represent a highly lucrative market, age discrimination remains rampant. In startup culture in particular, the preference for wunderkind founders is strong, despite mounting evidence that they aren’t more successful. My suspicion is that it was never about youthful energy per se, but some imagined innocence, unblemished by failure or loss, that young founders were believed to have.
I was 45 when I founded the House of Beautiful Business with Till Grusche, who is a few years younger than me, but who forever benefits from the halo of his early days as a punk rock singer. I simply wasn’t ready before then.
The young founder myth is not the only one this Beauty Shot issue seeks to debunk. Apparently, we also get happier and lead more fulfilling sex lives as we get older. All of these insights challenge our assumptions of a beautiful life—especially in business.
A more enlightened, honest relationship with age is at the heart of beautiful business.
I'd say a business is only beautiful when it embraces the raw and tender frailty that remains when the veneer is off and the cracks begin to show, regardless of our actual age.
—Tim Leberecht
Big Deal
Mom’s company IPOed and grandpa is my colleague now
Look no further than Biden, Bernie, or Nancy Pelosi: retirement doesn’t start at 65 anymore. In fact, “nearly all of the employment growth in the G7 is coming from older workers," says Andrew Scott, London Business School economist. Also, note that by 2050, more than 25 percent of people in Europe and North America will be aged 65 and older.
What does this mean for organizations?
Many people cannot afford to retire, and thus keep working. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is actually “petrified about the silent crisis of retirement” in the United States. Others who can afford retirement will instead choose to remain in the workforce to a certain degree. According to William F. Ziebell from insurance, risk management, and consulting firm Gallagher, retiring could come to mean simply shifting to a part-time role. Age and seniority won’t necessarily go hand in hand—a millennial could manage a team of 70-year-olds as “people might find their careers aren’t quite so linear....[you] could pick up a career later in life and be very comfortable not being that high up,” says Karin Kimbrough, LinkedIn’s chief economist. Recruiting will be focused more on demonstrable skills than education and experience. Having multiple careers in one lifetime (and even quite different careers) is becoming the norm, not the anomaly—for all generations.
Be careful not to underestimate those showing the first signs of gray. Economists from MIT, the US Census Bureau, and Northwestern University studied 2.7 million company founders and concluded that middle-aged individuals make the best entrepreneurs. Founders with an average age of 45 were responsible for creating the fastest-growing startups. The study’s authors established that “a founder who is 50 years old is 1.8 times more likely to start a top company than a 30-year-old founder.”
Need help. Will pay.
As we age, we require new products and service solutions, and in developed countries, the aging population has a lot of buying power. In the U.S., people over 50 represent $8 trillion of consumer demand, while in the UK, this same demographic has over 80 percent of the wealth.
At a recent CES—Consumer Electronics Show—several products aimed at this market stood out. Wheel Pad adds accessible living and working spaces onto pre-existing buildings; VR platform Rendever helps dementia patients remember their past; the Ianacare app helps caregivers plan, manage, and coordinate; and Caregiver Smart Solutions uses sensors in the home along with a machine-learning-based app to monitor the health and wellbeing of a loved one in a less intrusive way.
The digital divide needs attention though. In China, when an elderly woman wanted to pay cash for her medical insurance, she was refused due to the Covid risk that banknotes carry. The lady had no recourse because she didn't know how to set up and handle mobile payments.
The World Economic Forum outlines three interventions coming out of China that are helping to close the digital literacy gap, however. JD’s supermarket SEVEN FRESH showed in-store elderly customers how to order online. In 2020 JD, in partnership with ZTE, brought a 5G smartphone to market that among other features, makes it possible for adult children “to manage their elderly parents’ phones from afar.” JD also offered classes about downloading apps, making appointments online, scanning QR codes, and making mobile payments.
Living situations for the elderly are also being reimagined. The Embassies is a Swiss co-living concept that brings generations together while incorporating easily bookable support services. Need some help with the shopping? Check. An extra hand getting dressed in the morning? You’re covered. But the real draw, says founder Jan Garde, is the quality of life these homes offer. “Our society is changing,” he explained to us.
“Modern elders are demanding something vastly different than what the current offerings entail. These people have embraced life with full passion, they travel, they enjoy the good life, and all of a sudden they’re put in an environment that’s not playing to their needs any longer. We're offering an alternative—amazing spaces with the opportunity for self-determined living."
Meanwhile in the Netherlands, Hogeweyk is an acclaimed model for people living with dementia. The complex is organized into “villages,” with a supermarket, restaurant, and pub, and residents live together in houses based on what lifestyle they most identify with: traditional, urban, formal, or cosmopolitan.
Developed countries are putting a big focus on aging right now, but consider also that the World Health Organization reports that by 2050, 80 percent of older people will be located in low- and middle-income countries. Seems like a fact that could go on a sticky note in your boardroom…
Happier and more fulfilled with age
Do we get happier with age? Yes! Just ask the seniors among us. In the book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans, older interviewees describe the last five or 10 years as “the happiest years of their lives.”
Researcher David Blanchflower told CTV News that something “deep in the genes” causes our happiness levels to rise in old age, following a curve, or “U-bend,” that bottoms out in our late 40s. Or does happiness just keep going up in a straight line starting in early adulthood, as this study reports? Regardless of the route our personal happiness follows, one thing we can all be assured of is that a life rich in experience gives us wisdom and a clearer perspective on what really matters. As we age, we no longer dwell on the drama and insecurity that weighed on our spirits during our younger years, and life’s simple pleasures have a greater impact on our overall well-being.
With more free time and insight, many older adults are also exploring new passions later in life, delving into a beloved hobby, traveling, or even starting new careers. One retired lawyer opened a gin distillery in Washington, D.C. A colleague’s aunt became a nurse at 60.
Alongside this increase in happiness, scientists say we get better at managing our emotions, empathizing with others, and resolving conflicts as we age. Confidence also goes up as we shed our social hang-ups and go after exactly what it is we want, no holds barred. This translates to better sex, says relationships therapist Tara Sagli. In fact, women in their 80s have more satisfying sex than other age groups, according to the study cited by the BBC.
Small Is Beautiful
Nothing but a number
How old do you feel? Scientists say “feeling young could mean your brain is aging more slowly.” In a study using MRI brain scans, the brains of elderly people who felt younger than their actual age (known as subjective age) showed fewer signs of aging compared with those who felt their actual age, or older. Take this quiz to find out your subjective age. Then get Psychology Today's tips for feeling younger and enhancing your memory.
The circle of life, on repeat
As we live longer, life becomes less linear. Instead of only studying once, we’ll be studying multiple times, and have to begin at the bottom, again and again, out of necessity, or choice, or both.
Tom Vanderbilt, author of Beginners: The Curious Power of Lifelong Learning, cites a study where adults between the ages of 58 and 86 took multiple classes (from painting to Spanish) in parallel. Not only did they widen their skill base but their performance on a range of cognitive tests also improved: “They’d rolled back the odometers in their brains by some 30 years, doing better on the tests than a control group who took no classes.”
Vanderbilt quotes a friend who said: “It’s hard to be old and bad at something.” But clearly, it’s worth a try.
The secret to brand longevity
According to the website Work Style, heritage brands like Villeroy & Boch, LVMH, and Italian textile firm Crespi 1797, share four key characteristics: the ability to “maintain their sense of business across generations…regenerate while passing through adversity…focus on niche markets” plus a “moral commitment of preserving what has been created by their ancestors.” But just because your brand doesn’t span generations, doesn’t mean you can’t get in on the secret. Entrepreneur Leadership Network writer Anna Johansson says, “it’s not about having decades of history; it’s about telling your story and humanizing your brand.”
“I think there is a sea-change, in old age—a metamorphosis of the sensibilities. With those old consuming vigours now muted, something else comes into its own—an almost luxurious appreciation of the world that you are still in. Spring was never so vibrant; autumn never so richly gold. People are of abiding interest—observed in the street, overheard on a bus. The small pleasures have bloomed into points of relish in the day—food, opening the newspaper (new minted, just for me), a shower, the comfort of bed. It is almost like some kind of end-game salute to the intensity of childhood experience, when the world was new. It is an old accustomed world now, but invested with fresh significance; I've seen all this before, done all this, but am somehow able to find new and sharpened pleasure.”
—Penelope Lively, in The Guardian
