Member-only story
Self
Converting Midlife Crisis Into Opportunity
Crystalized intelligence and wisdom offer us tremendous growth in the latter half.
Mark was a fellow financial analyst, a brown haired 44-year-old, who’d been married for 20 years and had two kids at home. He was nice enough and we worked well together.
I first noticed things changing when he started losing weight. Then, he was always gelling his hair to look all slick, and wearing nicer clothes. His rounded torso went away and he was suddenly rocking these shorter sleeved collared shirts to show off his newly buff arms and flat stomach. His energy was entirely different as he came in all gung-ho, zested up on life and laughing, instead of his typical stoic self.
But then — the real thing that raised a silent flag for me was in the parking lot. Instead of his usual clunky minivan, he suddenly pulled in with a new, slicked up BMW he’d traded in for. I went to lunch with him one day, marveling at the vehicle, and asked, “So how are things going mark?”
“Oh amazing!” He said, giving me this huge smile. He started telling me about these new bars he was hanging out. I knew of the bars already. They weren’t places 40-somethings hung out at. They were 20-something watering holes.
