From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The roadmap for finding purpose, meaning, and success as we age, from bestselling author, Harvard professor, and the Atlantic's happiness columnist Arthur Brooks. Many of us assume that the more successful we are, the less susceptible we become to the sense of professional and social irrelevance that often accompanies aging. But the truth is, the greater our achievements and our attachment to them, the more we notice our decline, and the more painful it is when it occurs. What can we do, starting now, to make our older years a time of happiness, purpose, and yes, success? At the height of his career at the age of 50, Arthur Brooks embarked on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. From Strength to Strength is the result, a practical roadmap for the rest of your life. Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on certain priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness. Read this book and you, too, can go from strength to strength.
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Community Reviews
Generally speaking I think Brooks’s message that we need to be willing to “jump to the second curve” is sound. I would add the observation that remaining on the first curve or extending its trajectory often has much to do with an individual’s willingness to embrace change, particularly technology.
Watched too many older colleagues become true burdens on an organization, both financially and philosophically. Brooks didn’t touch on this concept at all in his book. I look at someone like Satya Nadella at Microsoft as an example of an inspired leader who took a sluggish organization resting on sales of a decades old operating system to a company currently dominating cloud services. He didn’t jump; he embraced, adapted, adopted a new business landscape. I look to him as an example of how to stay relevant as we work into our 60s and 70s.
I suggest that rather than relegating ourselves to teaching / mentoring roles prematurely, we ask our bright new employees /colleagues to “Show me” how this new stuff works, rather than sitting back hoping to dispense wisdom. 😉
I read this book for one of the book clubs I am in & while it wasn’t bad, I don’t know that I am in the correct stage of life to be reading it. While Brooks says that decline can start in your 30s, I don’t quite feel like I am at that point where I am really moving to the 2nd half of life. It also gave me a little anxiety in that maybe I should be feeling like I need to move into the 2nd half of my life and that I should be pondering my legacy. The book definitely made some interesting points but I feel like I would get more out of it if I were maybe 10 years older.
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