Ten Principles for Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life
by Peter F. Drucker as reported by Bob Buford, author of Finishing Well
Thousands of successful business people reach middle age—and get the surprise of their life. They look around and instead of savoring their success, they wonder what it all means. While their and grandparents expected to live only about fifty years, these men and women realize they have a whole “second life” ahead of them. But what should they
do with it? Most have little idea. To research his new book, Finishing Well:
What People Who REALLY Live Do Differently, author Bob Buford
interviewed 120 highly successful people who are redefining what it means to be 50 and beyond. He specifically focused on what they are doing to find meaning in this “second life.”
In this first of an eight-part series adapted from the book, management guru Peter Drucker—author of 35 books, Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, and still a leading voice in the business
world—offers ten principles for finding significance in the second half of life.
When the 94-year-old Peter Drucker speaks, smart people still listen. Two years ago The Economist magazine commissioned Drucker to write a 27-page section titled “The Next Society” on what lies ahead for the world. And just the year before, a Forbes magazine cover story called him, “Still the Youngest Mind.”
So what is Drucker thinking about these days?
“In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long term perspective,” Drucker said, “I think it is very probable that the most important event these historians will see is
not technology, it is not the Internet, it is not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time—and I mean that literally— substantial and rapidly growing numbers
of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves.” While that sounds good, it also troubles a lot of people, because they haven’t spent much time thinking about
how to manage themselves once they’ve achieved a certain level of
success. And Drucker knows it.
“In a very short time,” Drucker said, “we will no longer believe that
retirement means the end of working life. Retirement may even come much earlier than ever, but working life will continue if
only out of economic necessity. For many, however, working well beyond retirement will be a choice based on preference. They
will either tire of luxury or desire to use their knowledge and experience to contribute to society.” Most of these men and women,
however, face a daunting problem. They simply don’t know what to do next. They have so focused their energies on achieving success that they have little idea how to leverage that success into something they see as having long-term meaning.
To help move such individuals forward, Drucker outlined ten principles that he says can help anyone to find meaning in the second half of life.
1. Find out who you are. “Whenever people are on the road to success,” Drucker said, “they tend to think of repositioning as something they do if they’re a failure. But I would say that
you ought to reposition when you’re a success, because that’s when you can afford it.” But no one can reposition for significance, Drucker claimed, without first knowing who they are and where they
belong.
2. Reposition yourself for full effectiveness and fulfillment.
“Early in their careers,” Drucker said, “people tend to have a fairly limited timeframe, of four years or so. They can’t visualize what comes after that.” By the time they achieve some measure of
success, however, the timeframe expands. “Suddenly they begin to think about options that are twenty, thirty, or more
ahead of them,” Drucker said. Such a long view often brings clarity where none existed before.
3. Find your existential core. “There’s a strong correlation between high achievement and the ability to come to terms with life’s basic
questions,” Drucker said. “I think the most successful people are those who have a strong faith . . . there is a very substantial
correlation between religious faith, religious commitment, and success as doers in the community.”
4. Make your life your endgame. The only worthy goal is to make a
meaningful life out of an ordinary one, Drucker declared. He recommends setting one’s sights on achievements that really
matter, that will make a difference in the world, and to set them far enough ahead of current achievements that the journey will
be demanding but worth the effort. “Make your life your endgame,” Drucker said.
5. Planning doesn’t work. “Opportunity comes in over the
transom,” Drucker insisted, and that means one has to be flexible, ready to seize the right opportunities when they come. “Too
much planning can make you deaf to opportunity,” Drucker said. “Opportunity knocks, but it knocks only once. You have
to be ready for the accident.”
6. Know your values. “If you don’t respect a job, not
only will you do a poor job of it, but it will corrupt you, and eventually it may even kill you,” Drucker said. “For example,
ninety-nine percent of all physicians should not become hospital administrators. Why? Because they have no respect for
the job. They’re physicians and they feel that hospital administration is a job for clerks.” Knowing what you value and
what you don’t can keep you from making some bad choices.
7. Define what finishing well means to you. “My definition of success changed a long time ago,” Drucker said. “I love
doing consulting work and writing—I regularly lose track of time when I’m doing those things. But finishing well, and how I want to be remembered, those are the things that matter now. Making a
difference in a few lives is a worthy goal. Having enabled a few people to do the things they want to do: that’s really what I
want to be remembered for.”
8. Know the difference between harvesting and planting.
“For many years, I measured my work by my output—mainly in terms of books and other writing that I was doing,” Drucker said. “I was very productive for many years. I am not so productive today,
because these are years of harvesting rather than years of planting.” One needs to know the difference between the two.
#9 Good intentions aren’t enough; define the results you want. The number of non-profits and charitable organizations in this country has exploded in the past several years, but many of them get poor results, Drucker said, because “they don’t ask about results,
and they don’t know what results they want in the first place. They mean well and they have the best of intentions, but the only thing good intentions are for (as the maxim says) is to pave the road to
hell.” To achieve the best results, Drucker said people must ask the right questions and then partner with others who have the
expertise, knowledge, and discipline to get the right results.
10. Recognize the downside to “no longer learning, no longer growing.” “I see more and more people who make it to their mid-forties or beyond, and they’ve been very successful,” Drucker
said. “They’ve done very well in their work and career, but in my experience, they end up in one of three groups. One group will retire; they usually don’t live very long. The second group keeps on
doing what they’ve been doing, but they’re losing their enthusiasm, feeling less alive. The third group keeps doing what they’ve
been doing, but they’re looking for ways to make a contribution. They feel they’ve been given a lot and they’re looking for a
chance to give back. They’re not satisfied with just writing checks; they want to be involved, to help other people in a more
positive way.” And they’re the ones, Drucker said, who finish well.
“My definition of success changed a long time ago…making a difference in a few lives is a worthy goal. Having enabled a few
people to do the things they want to do: that’s really what I want to be remembered for.”
Bob Buford calls them “pathfinders”—individuals for whom age 40 and beyond has been an opportunity to further their significance rather than to rest on their success. They are people who have pioneered the art of finishing well in these modern times, and who can teach us to do the same, starting today. Bob sought out 60 of these trailblazers—including Peter Drucker, Roger Stauback, Jim Collins, Ken Blanchard and Dallas Williard— and has recorded their lively conversations in these pages so that they can serve as “mentors in print” for all of us.
“Twenty years from now,” Bob writes, “the rules for this second adulthood as a productive season of life may be better known. But for now, we’re out across the frontier breaking new ground.” Bob gives you a chance to sit at the feet of these pioneers and learn from them about Finishing Well so that you may shift into a far more fulfilling life now, no matter your age. A life of significance that will be a legacy for future generations too.
After selling Buford Television, Inc.—a large network of cable systems across the country—in July 1999, Bob Buford has turned to investing the remaining years of his life in the lives of others. He is chairman of the board of The Buford Foundation and Leadership Network, was the co-founder and first chairman of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, and has authored three books including Halftime and most recently Finishing Well. Finishing Well can be purchased at www.amazon.com or wherever books are sold. Bob and his wife, Linda, make their home in Dallas, Texas.
