I’m sitting on a plane on my way to Phoenix, AZ for a customer visit. The flight from LA to PHX is just about an hour, so I thought I’d take the time to catch up on my writing. Besides, once I’m awake, I can’t sleep- and I woke up at 3:30am this morning.

Last week, I had dinner with a few colleagues and a vendor partner in Santa Monica. It was a casual meeting, and we had a fun evening of drinks and Latin cuisine. One part of the conversation stuck with me, and I wanted to capture it here.

The vendor partner joining us that evening was a gentleman in his 40’s, a few more years into the same decade I’m now squarely in. He was an accomplished leader, and owner of his own design firm. He also was the father of 2 kids and in great physical shape at the age of 45. By all accounts, he was doing fantastic. One of the colleagues of mine at the table had stepped away for a moment to relieve himself, and that colleague was about a decade younger than us. It was almost a natural shift of conversation when the younger colleague left to discuss the going’s on of two gentlemen in their 40’s.

We had agreed upon a seemingly obvious yet profound aspect of our lives to this point. Both of us had fathered children, fostered nuclear families, started enterprises, traveled the world many times over, explored what life had to offer, and knew the difference between mediocre and superb sushi. It was in the transition from our 30’s to our 40’s that we found our true north, and had made key decisions in our previous decade that would echo in the current one. Looking back, I do see that had I made certain seemingly innocuous decisions a different way, my life would be drastically different today. It’s almost like the small decisions I made in my 30’s got magnified in my 40’s, and I’ve got to live with them for better or worse. That said, I’m certainly glad I took risks in my past decade that I would not be able to today. Watching my contemporaries try to take those kinds of risks now is at best hilarious, but usually painful to watch.

I have heard somewhere that time doesn’t make you wiser- it just makes you OLDER. The subtext of that is that your trajectory of career, life, learning, health, wisdom, and experience, all are things that don’t automatically happen with the passing of time. What does happen is that you just simply get older. I feel it when I work out now, or when a mud shoveling session results in a back injury. I feel my age when I somehow have high blood pressure when I never used to in my 30’s. When I was in my 30’s I would see my elders a decade ahead of me and wonder why they are where they are in life. One example was a mid 40’s guy who kept on partying with us 30’s guys when even we thought we were staying “too late” at the proverbial party. Guys like that 44 year old at the time were busy sowing late oats, trying to take risks at that age while swinging for the fences with little experience. Clearly, decisions he had made in his 30’s were confused, selfish, myopic, and a waste of precious time. It was during those critical 30’s that guys like him would fail to get their shit together and spend their 40’s catching up.

I have seen the past decades like this, for which my vendor partner would agree; your 20’s are about exploring everything– the world, yourself, who your friends are, and learning what is possible. This is also the time to sow those damn wild oats! Your 30’s benefit from the learnings of your 20’s, where you should ideally now have an array of experiences, knowledge, wisdom, and mistakes you’ve learned from that will guide you. It’s in this critical decade that you make lifelong bets with limited but hopefully sufficient information, and make commitments that may or may not pay off in the long run. The astute ones in their 30’s see where they’ll be when they’re 45, and plan accordingly (I was not one of those). It’s also in this crucial decade that you take the risks you can if you haven’t encumbered yourself already with commitments. If you’ve done your homework and have manufactured your luck, time will tell if you will have the wind behind your sails- sometimes that determination comes super fast, and sometimes it never comes.

I know I have been lucky, at 43 today. I’m blessed with a wonderful family, and career and business are all chugging along while there is plenty of room to grow. Things seemingly are falling into place by serendipity- not without challenges still, but at times I feel like the warrior in the coliseum who has a new sword dropped at my feet when the one I was wielding has shattered. . But is it all coincidence? I think there is an element of proactiveness to go look for your luck that has served me well in this last decade. It hasn’t always panned out, but I definitely have seen things happen that would have otherwise never happened had I not piqued my curiosity.

Back to the drinks and dinner, and two 40-somethings chatting about life- what became apparent was that between the 30’s and 40’s, the main difference is experience– experience in career, life, love, health, relationships, wealth, and the many things that can only come with the passing of time. Sure, people can learn things faster these days, and access to information is better than ever, but it takes time to apply that knowledge, develop wisdom, and make mistakes to learn from. It takes time to develop lasting relationships of quality, and learn to ditch the ones of no quality. It takes time to have LIFE happen to anyone, and to experience growth that can only happen through the application of knowledge, wisdom, and chances taken.

As such, in one’s 40’s, this is when one hits their STRIDE. They’ve had another decade of experience, and if they’ve made the right decisions in their 30’s, good things await in their 40’s. You can feel it when you know you’re directionally going on the right path. You can feel success embodied in every day imbued with purpose. It’s oftentimes described as the peak of a man’s life, when health, wealth, and relationships are all in top gear, engine running on all cylinders.

Conversely, if poor decisions were made in one’s 30’s- choosing the wrong partner, not taking the right risks, not placing the right bets, or if important decisions remained stalled for too long, the consequences are laid bare in one’s 40’s. I have seen it first hand with many of my peers- and it’s not a pretty sight. Imagine getting outplayed, outsmarted, outclassed by someone 2-3 decades your junior, only because you chose to sit on your ass until you were 41? Skills you could have developed, the world you could have seen, the wonderful relationships you could have developed- all of which never happened because you saw the world standing still with you? I’ve seen older guys try to “show off” in various ways when I see as younger, and I’d always wonder what they were hiding. Now, being that older guy, it’s clear- it’s those insecurities from not becoming the man I could have become, and covering that up with farce and general fronting. Harsh, right? But that’s life. I imagine the transition from 40’s to 50’s will be much more of the same, probably amplified.

Shortly after the older guys wrapped this discussion up, the 34 year old rejoined the table. Smart guy, diligent, married, dog-daddy, and endurance runner – he is well on his way. The world is his oyster, and I hope he knows it. “So where to next guys?” he pined. The vendor partner looked across at me and communicated volumes with a coy smile.

Well, my flight to Phoenix is bout to land. Time to go get after it!