While there may appear to be a youth movement with younger athletes, artists, and other high performers coming on the scene, the data indicates that the elite are getting older in every field. Top athletes, Nobel laureates, CEOs, and even rock stars are aging. The average age of an Olympian has increased by two years between the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. And these older Olympians are winning medals at the same rate as their younger counterparts.
Over the past century, the average age of a Nobel laureate has increased from 56 to 65 years, with Physics laureates showing the most significant increase in age (46 to 72 years). The average age of the S&P 500 CEOs has increased from 55 to 57 years between 2006 and 2016. And boards keep hiring older CEOs, raising the average hiring age of CEOs by 14 years between 2005 and 2019. Even movie stars and rock stars are graying, with the average age of Hollywood actors approaching 50. And according to Billboard, the average age of artists with a #1 solo album has increased from 25 in 1999 to 29 in 2019.
While we continue to see an influx of young superstars, the older elite performers seem to be doing quite well and holding their own. Like 41-year-old Tom Brady winning his seventh super bowl, 35-year-old Messi leading his team to a World Cup trophy, 50-year-old Phil Mickelson winning a golf major, or Serena Williams or Roger Federer, who appear to defy aging continually. Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, both pushing 80, tour the world with seemingly the same level of energy as they did decades ago. And in business, older entrepreneurs consistently outperform their younger counterparts, something I have discussed in depth here.
The Flat Bell Curve
Seeing people attain superstardom at a young age is nothing new. Elite performance happens when you develop your natural gifts and abilities. The earlier you can identify and build on your innate talents, the sooner you will reach an elite level. This is true for intellectual, athletic, and artistic pursuits. We live in a generation where boundaries are pushed to the maximum at an early age, we have better training and mentoring earlier in life, our expectations are higher, and we have access to a world of information that helps us succeed. This is why we see early bloomers in every field.
But interestingly, the tail end of exceptional performance is also getting longer, primarily because we maintain our peak for longer than ever before. The standard bell-shaped curve of high performance, where talent progresses, peaks, and declines, no longer applies. It has changed into a plateau-shaped curve, where skill develops, peaks, maintains a high level for a long time, and then gradually declines.
A study of 125 years of expert chess matches has exhibited these findings. Chess at the highest level requires extreme focus, mental acuity, emotion control, pattern recognition, and many other skills that may appear to deteriorate with age. Researchers, however, found that expert chess player skills increase rapidly in their twenties, peak at around thirty, maintain that level till about 45 years, and begin a gradual and insignificant decline. Expert players continue playing at a high level well into their fifties.
We have seen this occur in just about every walk of life. Tom Cruise was already a superstar when he played the role of Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible as a 34-year-old. His latest Mission Impossible movie, expected to release in 2023, will feature him playing the same role twenty-seven years later as a 61-year-old. Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl as a 24-year-old and his last at 43. Roger Federer won his first Grand Slam at Wimbledon at age 21 and The Australian Open at 36, maintaining elite performance in a high-intensity sport that favors quick bursts of power and speed for 15 years. Likewise, Serena Williams won her first Grand Slam when she was 17 and her last when she was 35.
What This Means For You:
Regardless of your field, the new bell curve of high performance dictates that your peak spans decades. Your period of ultra-high productivity is long, and if you haven’t achieved what you want, you still can. This has been proven over and over again across disciplines. A review of 74 studies on the topic shows no difference in productivity between older and younger workers.
Remember, you are never too old to achieve excellence in your profession. While it may appear that your prime is behind you and only the younger superstars have the potential for exceptional performance, the reality is that for most people, their best days are ahead of them. If you believe that and put in the dedicated effort to develop your skills, the unthinkable is within reach, regardless of age.
