In our search for a meaningful life, we often add things to our lives. But the reverse may suit us better, especially as we get older. Chipping away, not adding, to help find our ‘second curve’.

I visited the beautiful city of Florence this month, home of the Renaissance. Amongst all the incredible works of art that fill the city, Michelangelo’s David has become the defining representation of the period. A sculpture of perfect balance, form, and harmony from the hands of a genius who was less than thirty years old.

Michelangelo said sculpture was the hardest of the arts because there was no room for error, unlike in painting, where an artist could simply apply another brush to cover a mistake. When Michelangelo received the commission for David, they gave him a discarded and flawed block of marble. It would take him just under three years to complete his masterpiece for the city.

As I joined the thousands of other visitors in the Accademia Gallery to marvel at Michelangelo’s iconic statue, I remembered a quote attributed to him:

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. It is already there. I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

I wondered if we could apply this to ourselves, too.

Chipping away to reveal more

In our search for a meaningful life, we often add things to our lives. The quest for more is evolutionary. More money, more status, more possessions. But the reverse may suit us better, especially as we get older. Chipping away, not adding.

The social psychologist Arthur Brooks talks about our lives as art. We begin life as a blank canvas, with colour and texture added to the canvas as we age, representing our accumulation of things and experiences. But there comes a point when the canvas is full. New brush strokes only make the painting worse, not better. Brooks suggests as we age, we move from the canvas to the sculpture, removing the rough marble in order to reveal our true, fulfilled selves.

Finding our ‘Second Curve’ in life

Brooks is an interesting thinker, and his work bears exploring. Tied closely to his suggestion of moving from canvas to sculpture, he also talks about the need for us to move from our ‘first curve’ to our ‘second curve’ in life, believing our professional decline happens much earlier than we think. Brooks believes this happens between our late thirties to early fifties. That may surprise quite a few people. It surprised me.  

He believes decline is inevitable, but that we can develop new strengths and skills into older age. In order to make this jump to a second curve, we first need to understand the two types of intelligence behind these two curves.   

Fluid Intelligence vs Crystallised Intelligence

In the early 1970s, British psychologist Raymond Cattell documented two types of intelligence people have: fluid intelligence and crystallised intelligence.

Fluid intelligence is the ability to create ideas, think flexibly, and solve hard problems quickly. It’s most prevalent when we are young, but it declines with age. Fluid intelligence is largely behind our first curve in life, that first decade or two of our careers.

Crystallised intelligence is the body of knowledge learned from life. Call it wisdom. Unlike fluid intelligence, it increases with age through our forties, fifties, and sixties, and is our second curve. If fluid intelligence is solving problems, crystallised intelligence is knowing which problems to solve.    

People with crystallised intelligence will rely more on their abilities to synthesise knowledge, compare current data with past patterns, and guide, develop, and teach others.

Research suggests workers should hold different roles throughout their lives that complement these two types of intelligence. The key is to move from one to the other before the decline sets in, repurposing our professional lives to rely more on crystallised intelligence as we age.

Five Steps to our Second Curve and satisfaction  

Making the jump from the first curve to the second curve of our professional lives isn’t easy. The first curve is responsible for accumulating many worldly rewards after all, and difficult to let go. But these rewards are unlikely to provide lasting satisfaction. Instead, we can follow a way forward that allows us to move into a satisfying next chapter of life and a second curve.

1. Make sure your work is meaningful. Research shows productive human endeavour is central to creating a sense of purpose in life. What makes work meaningful isn’t the kind of work it is, but the sense that you feel you are earning your success based on serving others. Meaningful work is where you feel part of something larger than yourself.

2. Create a reverse bucket list. Bucket lists are temporarily satisfying because they stimulate dopamine, but they create attachments (wants), which then become dissatisfaction as more items (wants) get added. A reverse bucket list asks you to be selective and only put forward something that has an intrinsic motivation (doing something for its inherent satisfaction only). There’s nothing wrong with visiting a place you’ve always wished to see, running a marathon, or pushing yourself to master a difficult skill. But ask yourself whether these bucket list items stem from how much they will make others admire or envy you. That kind of motivation won’t lead to sustained satisfaction. Your bucket list should only contain a handful of things linked to friendships, family, and pursuits that are satisfying, meaningful and serve others.

3. Share what you’ve learned with others. There are countless stories of people who have shared their knowledge and wisdom with others. St Thomas of Aquinas, the greatest philosopher of his age, warned against money, power, and fame, and spent his life helping others. We can do the same in our own way. Mentoring is a great way to share what you’ve learned with others. Many organisations offer structured programs. I mentor several people both within my organisation and outside of work and find it a rewarding experience linked to my purpose. 

4. Focus on strong, healthy long-term relationships. Robert Waldinger, Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, gave a TED Talk on what makes a good life based on a 75-year study, one of the most comprehensive in history. It wasn’t money, fame, or accomplishments, but good relationships with family, friends, and communities. You need to have people in your life you can count on and grow with. And they should never be at the expense of work. Strong human connections help you get on the second curve and flourish. There’s a reason that TED Talk has over 40 million views.

5. Embrace everyday moments in life Enjoy the everyday moments of life, like a sunrise or sunset. Think more, read more. Peacefully accept our own limits; there will not be a point in the future when all your tasks are done. Accept that liberating first step so you can spend as much time in the present, with those who matter most.

Organisations should balance their mix of ‘fluid’ and ‘crystallised’ workers

As more professionals make that move into a second curve, this is a timely reminder for organisations who have an over-weighting to a youth-dominated culture and, by extension, fluid intelligence. We can see this where the demand for new products and innovation (fluid) has come at the expense of thinking about the implications for our culture and well-being (crystallised). Certain social media platforms would be one example, especially as we now know how damaging they can be to mental health.

Older workers with crystallised intelligence, therefore, still have a vital role to play in organisations. Companies can match them with younger workers, benefiting the organisation and improving the product or service to society. Their wisdom, built over decades, isn’t lost.

Now is all we ever get

Research shows on average people get psychologically healthier after thirty and well into our advanced years. Maybe it’s because we realise now is all we ever get. To find our second curve, we should commit to stop trying to add more and more and instead start taking things away, revealing our true self.

Just like Michelangelo did to that discarded block of marble five hundred years ago.