Halftime Career & Life Reflections: Moving from Success to Significance
Today in My “History”: Quest for Worldly Success, Chasing After Wind
On December 12, 2004, I started my winter job as an undergraduate research assistant. During that month, white snowy Christmas’ Eve in New York, I slept overnight in the lab with a coat on me and a suitcase on the side of me, the lab had a classy name to a college freshman like me: “Center for Biotechnology”. My mind was filled with dreams, plans, aspirations, and other “chasing the wind” efforts for the future, leaving no room for the past.
On December 12, 2012, I started my third post-school full-time job in the US since on top of an existing full-time job. As someone who started working part-time since the age of 16 and who was (during the 2008 recession) one of the few out of 100+ students in my cohort who had a Statistician job offer at hand well before completing last graduate courses in 2009 and dared to leave the US for my home country for career exploration, I had a little less typical and a little more work experience than most of my peers back then, but still relatively young and growing in my career.
On December 12, 2018, I was tied up caring for my newly born business baby, WeCare Holistic, Inc., in a similar way that first-time parents care for their newborns.
Gradual Shift from Goal-Oriented to Growth-Oriented
Today, December 12, 2023, I was occupied with projects for both my to-be-more-independent business child and in preparation for an upcoming career transition, while taking care of my parents’ visit from abroad and our reunion for the first time during Christmas season for over two decades. It was not until an Integrative Medicine doctor’s message sharing of how he healed patients with the disease similar to Kathy Chow (pinyin: Haimei Zhou)’s, lupus, with classic formula of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) followed by my mother confirming the news, that I realized that the beautiful actress who marked the era of my childhood winter break memories with my cousin was gone from this earth. The same question comes back to me: How might the shortness of life affect the way we live and work?
The lyrics of a Chinese hymm, composed from Psalm 90:6, came to my mind:
In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
In the early stage of our human life, it blooms and flourishes, but by the end of the second stage, it is dry and withered. We focused on growth in our career, but sometimes on an autopilot that we worked so hard without even thinking why we are working and what we are striving for. Then the verses of Ecclesiastes 1:3–11:
““What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
…
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.”
When I dig into some experimentation and casual inference related books and literature just a few hours earlier in the day, the works of one of the pioneering figures and authors in the space of artificial intelligence (AI) and causal inference, Judea Pearl, was unavoidable. Somehow, the death of his son came to mind after I finish reading his brilliant technical works or typing lines of code. This is no different than the natural reaction when reading Bob Buford’s account of the loss of he and his wife’s only son when he was 24 years old, just because I was reading something technical. No amount of success would bar a human being from experiencing the pains of life and death.
Chronically I still have some time and additional birthday cakes to eat before celebrating the milestone of 40 calendar years of life’s journey, yet mentally I am overdue for reflections of a midlife career and life reflections although recently I have been doing a mid-career transition and recharge unconsciously.
Start with Why
According to the world’s definition, success is a culmination of accomplishments, the attainment of wealth, prosperity, popularity, or status. It’s a definition that is clothed in self-glory and personal pleasure. We craved that feeling of glory and success, and we spent majority of our time chasing that perfect picture that the world paints in the first half of our life and career. We spent all of our time creating things and working in order to achieve this success, but once success is reached what does it mean? What’s the purpose?
An expert in organizational behavior and management, Charles Handy, published a book called “The Age of Paradox” in 1994, the sigmoid curve is a big proponent of his book:
Move with Purposes
As Handy put it, the paradox of success is that got you where you are won’t always keep you where you are. So how and where to steer our wheels in the shaded area of confusion?
When life gets blurry, few things bring clarity like ancient wisdom. In the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon gives an account of how he lived his life. Most of his life was spent chasing success and other materialistic things that didn’t matter. He conveyed how unknowingly empty he was, “chasing the wind.” Chasing the wind is the equivalent to chasing trivial pursuits. King Solomon built a successful empire. He had spent his life seeking meaning in building temple, palace, and other architectures, wealth (I recall from a sermon a few years ago that it was equivalent to at least modern day US $3 trillion), knowledge, and a harem that included 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). He was one of the most successful kings, and he had found that his success was purposeless because he was chasing the wind. A lot of us can relate to King Solomon because we were chasing the same thing, especially in the beginning stage of our life.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon lists the various vain pursuits that are equivalent to chasing after the wind:
- All things done “under the sun,” that is, in a human life lived apart from any consideration of God (1:14)
• Pursuing wisdom and the understanding of madness and folly (1:16–17)
• Rewarding oneself with pleasure (2:10–11)
• Seeking immortality (2:16–17)
• Thinking one can control the outcome of his life (2:26)
• Envious competition with one’s neighbor (4:4)
• Trying to make a lasting name for oneself (4:16)
Live as if we were living a second time and as though we had acted wrongly the first time. That’s the perspective of Ecclesiastes. We are invited to learn from another’s midlife crisis, enabling us to avert our own, to journey through someone else’s meaninglessness and find our own true purpose.
The book summary was good:
At midlife, our perspective can become blurry. Midlife is a disruptive season where we collide with limitations on all sides. We recognize there is more of life in the rearview mirror than on the road ahead of us. We wonder if our lives so far have been worthwhile. We are uncertain about what lies ahead. But midlife is also an opportunity to recalibrate our vision. It’s a time to look back, take stock of our lives so far, and refocus on new dimensions of identity and calling.
Peter Greer and Greg Lafferty offer insight for navigating midlife with fresh clarity and purpose. Drawing on the wisdom of the book of Ecclesiastes, they show how we can come to grips with the realities of who we are and what we should become in the years ahead. In a world that can seem meaningless at times, God offers perspective that anchors us, renews us, and propels us back into the world in meaningful mission and service. Re-discover who God has called you to be. And see the rest of your life with the clarity of 40/40 vision.
The 1st edition of “Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance” by Bob Buford was published 1997. Both Handy and Buford’s books have contents relevant to and valuable for today as when they were published. Buford cited the sigmoid curve with the following explanation:
“The normal pattern for most people is a single curve that rises as we approach middle age then sharply falls off toward retirement. What Handy recommends is to start a new curve, preferably while the first one is still rising, but certainly before it begins to fall. Ideally, life should consist of a series of overlapping curves.”
“It is possible to get stuck in any one of these areas. I know people close to my own age who are perpetual students. They acquire degrees like I used to acquire television stations. Others I have known have gotten stuck as the curve of “doing work” began to fall off. Before they knew it, there was no new curve rising on the horizon.”
“It is important to learn how to enjoy and benefit from the success you worked so hard to attain without becoming addicted to it, without going past the inflection point in the curve when it turns sour.”
“If the still, small voice is speaking to you now, do not look for reasons to ignore it. There will always be reasons to stay where you are. It is faith that calls you to move on.”
Note that “move on” doesn’t have to be actions with visible labels, such as leaving a first-half job or start something completely different, although they could suit some people at certain times. It has a broader implication of shifting our focus more on our strengths than our roles.
Shifting to Significance: Make Daily Work Meaningful & Have Eternal Significance
We work to become, not to acquire. — Elbert Hubbard
Our work can also become an important platform for making a lasting impact following God’s calling for the second half. I thought about, and emulated Nehemiah’s prayers regarding his job in the Bible. As the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes, Nehemiah held a very responsible position, yet he longed to follow God’s calling to be back in the destroyed city of Jerusalem. He was working for brutally long days, trying to rebuild the walls, he was attempting the impossible. He also faced a strong enemy named Sanballat, who along with his friends, had attempted to discourage Nehemiah and his workers by laughing at their vision (Neh. 2:19) and later criticizing and belittling their efforts (Neh. 4:1–3). Moreover, there was division in the ranks of Nehemiah’s workforce. Yet Nehemiah would not quit. He prayed to strengthen his hands (Neh. 6:9).
Other Shifts That Have Occurred Over the Past Years
Reflecting on the first half of my career, I’ve noticed the accumulation of wisdom, sometimes gained through painful lessons and other times from inspirational mentors and leaders I worked with. Several shifts have gradually unfolded, influenced by lessons learned from others but truly understood through experience. For instance, I transitioned from being self-centered to serving others (though I’m still progressing toward selflessness), prioritizing the needs of others above my own. I shifted from acting based on preferences to acting based on principles, and from being emotionally driven to being character-driven. Moreover, I moved from pursuing individual achievement to valuing team success more than my own, and from seeking control to embracing empowerment. I now make much better decisions than I did when I was younger.
New Vision for Career Going Forward, in the Second Half of Life
We make a living by what we get, but make a life by what we give.
— Winston ChurchillIf the still, small voice is speaking to you now, do not look for reasons to ignore it. There will always be reasons to stay where you are. It is faith that calls you to move on.
— Bob Buford
As purpose-driven midlife or mid-career professionals, we weren’t meant to be defined by the world’s version of success. We were called to higher measures. Envy, greed, comparison, and a scarcity mindset, leads us to strive for conventional success, but what if we redefined the definition?
Redefining True Success: Meaningful Significance
Romans 12:2 tells us not to conform to the world but be renewed by the transformation of our minds. This is where we will find success. What do you believe? What do you do well? What needs exist in the world that you would like to meet? What difference do I want to make through my efforts? I used these questions to write down my personal mission statement as Buford suggested.
For me and people with same faith, success is in chasing after God and His will for our lives. Our work is an important part of that. He gives abundantly and accomplishes more than we ever could on our own. In Him we find true success, and we are immeasurably more. We can’t quit growing, every task on the job is an opportunity to learn and grow, so as every encounter in life.
Deuteronomy 28:4–5 says, “Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl”. In those days, women used kneading bowls to make bread dough. If they used bowls that broke easily, they wouldn’t be able to make bread. Therefore, baskets and kneading bowls represented the means by which one got their tangible blessings. God blesses us with the ability to work so that we can honor Him. Colossians 3:22 says, “You who are servants who are owned by someone, obey your owners. Work hard for them all the time, not just when they are watching you.” We have all been given different talents and abilities. When we use our gifts, we can experience fulfillment as we serve God and share His love with others. Your definition of success can be different depending on what you believe, but it will be a second half redefinition, too.
Continuously Learn and Unlearn in the Second Half
I have had many jobs in my student era and several jobs in my professional career, one thing that doesn’t change is: it’s always changing. Yes, there are fields that change slower, just like the First Law of Technology Adoption: Technology changes quickly, but organizations adopt much slower. Regardless of speed of change, no matter what field we are in, the playing field is constantly shifting. As a data scientist, entrepreneur, investor who is interested in everything “alternative” from alternative medicine to alternative assets investment, I cannot do my job well, let alone fulfill my mission unless I am engaged in a systematic, consistent pattern of learning. Practically staying sharp is a requirement for a technical professional like me, staying on top with new programming languages, models and methodologies, frameworks and systems that are at the forefront of technological development, but more fundamentally nurturing an active mind gets our inward nature cleaned and renewed day by day:
“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day.” —2 Corinthians 4:16 (NASB)
There remains a distinguishing reverence to getting older. God gives a kindly nod to it when he describes the grey hair of his eldest believers as a “crown of glory” (Proverbs 16:31) and when He acknowledges, “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days” (Job 12:12). And as quoted in the above verse, Paul didn’t end his description with wasting away. He continued that our inner self is being renewed day by day. Outwardly — physically — we’re in decay. Inwardly — spiritually — we’re being revitalized and renewed. Every age promises its challenges. Nevertheless, the Lord remains faithful. Young or old, He is with us. This is a saying we can trust whether we’re 3 or 93. But when you really think about it, only the 93-year-old has the genuine perspective to comprehend and confirm it. The aged among us can look back across the expanse of life’s plentiful years to recall the events they were sure would destroy them but didn’t.
It is also important to “unlearn” the doctrine of specialization in the second half. As Buford put it, most first-halfers are trained in the language and operations of their particular field. Accountants stay current on tax laws but know little about management theory; a neurosurgeon may have progressed from scalpel to laser to nuclear probes but would be hard-pressed to treat a gunshot wound. Second-half missions tend to be more holistic and demand a more widely rounded practitioner.
I recall during my first half of career, a senior leader of our group of 150+ people summarized a science book in a sentence: “Science develop because old people die.” The hinted problem is not that old people become resistance of the science development, the real problem is that some old people stop learning and growing, and stick to certain beliefs, attitudes, and ways of doing things learned in the first half of life that used to bring success but no longer fits. Think about Nokia cell phone in the face of early iPhone days. If we stop learning and more importantly unlearning ways that are no way longer suited to the new situation, we will likely get stagnant and become our own roadblocks.
From Passive Change Adapter to Proactive Change Agent
During the first half, we learned how to navigate changes and adapting to changes successfully. In the second half, we can go a level higher, by proactively forecasting and creating changes. Knowledge and experience plus hard work probably work out when we are in times of comfort or free from major changes, but at certain key moments, they lose effects like applications on a smartphone when the ambient temperature gets too hot or cold — the forces are beyond common knowledge accumulated through hard work and experience alone. Just think about how much has changed in the time window of the pandemic and we know the limitations of forecasting based on historical data in a short span of several decades of a human life! A natural reaction to those types of changes in our first half could be fear, escape, or ability, control, but they don’t guarantee to be functional, we have to have faith and create constructive changes that surpass our existing knowledge and even rationale.
Given a lesson learned from the first half that the only thing doesn’t change is change itself, instead of being reactive, why not get proactive, to work on and create changes? That’s why the previous learning and un-learning become important, the lessons and perspectives learned and un-learned during continuous growth would help us anticipate trends and create changes accordingly.
From Segregated to Integrated
One of the real tragedies of the first half is that people are encouraged to be selfish. No one really wants to put career ahead of family, but it happens — the inertia of trying to be successful is just too great for most of us to resist. The third decade of many’s life is practically a blur, with little time to think through any of the core issues and values that lead to significance. In the second half the life, faith becomes much more integrated instead of segregated. Independence became interdependence, obligation became personal choices, more on appearances (visible labels and successes) became more inward focused. We don’t have to radically change our lifestyle to work full-time doing things we had never enjoyed doing. We just need to use what God had equipped us with more fully integrated into our missions.
Shift in Focus, Not Necessarily the Tangibles
I enjoyed an example given in an interview between Buford and Zondervan. Let’s say you were a vice president of marketing in your first-half career. That’s your role. If your second-half mission is to make a 100x impact in the social sector, and you still view yourself solely in your role as a vice president of marketing, you will limit your opportunities for a meaningful second-half career because there probably are not too many organizations in the social sector looking for a vice president of marketing. But in that role, you most likely traded on your strengths of decision making, strategic planning, leadership, consumer needs, and communication. If you view yourself from the perspective of those strengths, you open up limitless possibilities for the second half because any one of those strengths will be valued by nonprofits. So while you might not end up as a vice president of marketing, you will have any number of opportunities to put those strengths to work in a calling that connects to what’s most important to you.
Another way of thinking about strengths vs. roles is that whatever you have had for the last thirty years, you bring with you. Halftime helps you learn how to reformat those strengths to fit your second-half career. For example, let’s say there are 26 million software developers who can code. But according to Sturgeon’s law, out of the entire pool of software developers who can write code to implement algorithms, perhaps only 10% can solve problems at a visionary level and think deeply when to use what algorithms. If your first half was a software developer who focused on implementing solutions, then the second half might be a good time to allocate some energy or shift focus to know when and how to apply what tools. Even if AI copilot gets more advanced and can replace human coding through completely natural language, this kind of capabilities would still be much needed and valuable. That’s probably why the need for prompt engineering grows dramatically with the adoption of generative AI models.
Start Passing It On Now
“If we fit ourselves into the world, the fleeting nature of life will make it easier to live freely and lightly on earth. We’ll live with a sense of proportion, doing the things that matter most and leaving the rest to God and others. We’ll seek to give more than we receive. We’ll walk in constant gratitude for this day, because future days are not guaranteed.
And when we pass, we’ll pass it on. ”
When we are no longer pursuing our own name and fame, we become free to focus on serving others. It’s time to finally get over ourselves. Mid-career or midlife, either factually or symbolically, is a time to transition from making it all about our accomplishments to making it about others. A time to pour into the people around us and celebrate their success. A time to share the wisdom of our first half by mentoring those younger (while humbly learning from them) in our second half.
We sometimes note how a legacy and reputation, carefully built over many years, can be destroyed in a moment. We in midlife do very well to remember it. But do we ever consider how a legacy and reputation can be established in a moment? That’s a rare occurrence, to be sure. But it can happen. The anonymous thief on the cross proves it. His magnum opus, his great work, was asking to be remembered right in the moment when Rome was obliterating him. And so he became a proof that it’s never too late to turn it around. He’s the patron saint of deathbed conversions. Has anyone ever used his dying breath more wisely?
And if his life counts only because of one meaningful moment, surely yours will count for many more. Believe it. Serve God’s purposes in your generation, and don’t stop now just because it’s grown a little humdrum or difficult. Live. Serve. Die. Decay. Then rise forevermore.
I select a few 40/40 vision questions as food for thought:
What stage of life do you find yourself in? How has midlife, or mid-career, or insatiable success, or its approach affected you?
When you acknowledge your mortality, what kind of action does that prompt? What action would you like to take? What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind when you die?
Going forward, what changes do you want to make in midlife and/or mid-career endeavors?
Welcome to share your thoughts with me :)
Citations & References:
1. Buford, Bob. “Halftime”.
2. Greer, Peter; Lafferty, Greg; Buford, Bob. “40/40 Vision.”
3. Lloyd Reeb Interviewed on Live Inspired Podcast with John O’Leary. YouTue video here.
4. The “How to Pray” Series.
5. Living with No Regrets.
6. “Are you chasing the wind?” Retrieved from FearfullyFashioned.com
7. What is the meaning of “chasing the wind” in Ecclesiastes? Retrieved from GotQuestions.org here.
