Where did all the "genius" go?

Imagine you are in your twenties, have a natural science or engineering PhD, and speak 4 to 6 languages. You have won prizes and awards, read over 2000 books, have profound knowledge, and enjoy literature, visual arts, history, and music, perhaps even playing a few instruments. You are not socially awkward, even though you may not bathe in the crowds. You are well-travelled, have already seen countries and people, and know the world’s sites and museums. You are also financially savvy, use your resources wisely, and have no student debt because you were always on full scholarships. You are not an “alpha animal”, not so competitive, not arrogant, no need to “win”, and not much interest in status or career. So what’s next? Max Planck Institute? Done. Patent registration? Done. McKinsey / BCG /Bain (MBB)? Done. Wallstreet? Executive? PE? M&A? University professor? Done! Done! Done!

Now, it’s interesting to see where people go from here. Up to this point, there has always been a new and exciting thing to pull you in. I mean, only idiots need career plans, right? For the others, there is always the next thing before they finish the previous one. But at this point, it may be the first time talent itself is not helping.

I have seen a few previous high-flyers having quite a hard landing in the end game. So, I took my Rolodex (this is still what I call my contact file), logged up on LinkedIn to look for recent updates, and started to sort the cards and look for patterns. Obviously, I am not going to quote names here and also my methodology may include bias. However, I wanted to form an opinion on the main discriminators between those thriving professionally and personally in the later passages of their professional and personal lives.

The conclusion is quite clear. Those who had a broad scope of different activities and were able to reinvent themselves and apply their experience did very well. That’s what I heard, is what kept Madonna (the pop star) so long in business. But I don’t know enough about Madonna to have a judgment. By contrast, those who stuck with the roles and statuses they acquired before, either disappeared or took even a tragic ending. At some point people grow out of the organisations in which they were becoming big. And then entrepreneurial skills and spirit make all the difference, between an exciting future and dwelling on nostalgia.

I sometimes have the privilege of mentoring and teaching some very talented students and researchers. And I learned from this exercise of sorting the lives I know that fostering entrepreneurship and staying personally independent from hierarchical structures is something I will remind them of.