The Overlooked Value of Maturity
Youth is overrated.
Ever since the astonishing success of a teenage Bill Gates behind Microsoft, and young Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak behind Apple in the 1980’s, the world is ever more focused on precocious success and young achievement.
The fact is, the world has always been in awe of early achievement. Ever since 5-year-old Mozart charmed the Viennese society with his musical ability in the XVIII century, the world seems to be in constant lookout for ‘the youngest’ in all areas.
Awards, International competitions, prizes, scholarships, and distinctions are issued all over the world to young leaders and the most promising young talents, in order to showcase their accomplishments in an increasingly competitive world.
But this puts an unfair amount of pressure on the young.
Young people are still developing their mental abilities, finding their calling, and polishing their skills, and in the pressure of having to achieve early success they may come to feel -wrongly- that without it their entire lives are ruined. They have yet to learn that a key component to sucess is failure.
This false concept also unjustly discards achievements earned through experience and perseverance, more than due to luck or circumstances.
And while brilliance at any age it’s always noteworthy, we should not overlook seasoned talent for the novelty of the youth.
Some have a late start due to personal circumstances, others due to luck. Some start early but achieve their prime and their biggest successes in mid-life.
But what all late bloomers have in common is that their success comes as a result of sustained effort, and not in the least thanks to a maturity that, instead of diminishing their abilities, seems to hone them.
As proof of this, we have compiled a collection of late bloomers: people who did not find success but well after their younger years, and yet left an indelible mark in the world.
A late start in business was not a hindrance for some of the most successful mogul entrepreneurs.
Once milk-shake machine salesman, Ray Kroc started McDonald's in 1954, at age 52. But it took him more than 6 years to make a profit out of it, and nearly 30 to build it into the global empire it is nowadays.
After being fired from a dozen jobs, Colonel Harland Sanders started Kentucky Fried Chicken at age 65, funding his first restaurant with his first Social Security check. In less than 10 years, he had 600 franchises in the US and Canada.
John Paul DeJoria was 36, recently fired, jobless and living in a car when he co-founded the worldwide famous hair care label John Paul Mitchell Systems along hairdresser Paul Mitchell. Success was not instantaneous, though, and he sold the product door-to-door before achieving the first revenues. Since then, he's become a successful entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist and activist.
Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel was 30 when she opened her first boutique in Paris. The rest is history.
However, late starts are not uncommon in the literary world.
After a life of adventure capable to rival any novel, Miguel de Cervantes was in his late-50s, and nearly bankrupt when he penned his “Don Quixote”. Not only the stories of the errant knight were a huge success, but they also marked the most creatively fertile period of his life.
Laura Ingalls Wilder was 65 when her first book, “Little House in the Big Woods” was published.
Edith Wharton published her first book at 43. Meanwhile, Henry Miller published his first work at 44.
J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter at age 28, after a divorce and a miscarriage, while being a jobless single mother on welfare. By the time the book was published, she was already 32, and it took a while longer before becoming the bestselling phenomenon we all know about.
Maya Angelou was 41 when she published her first book of poetry, "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings", and was 64 when she recited her poem "On the Pulse Of Morning" at the United States presidential Inauguration in 1993.
Julia Child was 49 when she published her first book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and 51 when she started her famous TV program.
The Arts world is known for feeding from the fresh energy, fearlessness, and experimental views of the young, but it has also given us notable examples of late achievers in the visual arts, music, dance, etc.
When her arthritis didn’t allow her to continue embroidering, Anna Mary Robertson Moses, Grandma Moses, started painting at age 76. Indefatigable, she went on creating and exhibiting for over 25 years, and now her paintings belong to some of the most important art collections around the world.
Considered one of the most important portraitists of the XIX century, Julia Margaret Cameron did not begin to take photographs but until she was 45. However, she made up for the lost time, producing over 900 images in the spawn of twelve years, among them portraits of Charles Darwin and Alice Lyddell, creating the first close-up photographs.
Often recognized as the Father of Modern painting, Paul Cezanne didn't get a solo exhibition until he was 56, after a lifetime of rejections and ridicule, and then he had to wait six more years before his art gained widespread acclaim among the critics and the public.
Another Impressionist master, Henri Matisse was in his late 30s when his painting began to gain the attention of the critic and the public. When, at age 72, he could no longer paint due to a recent operation, he traded the brushes for a scissor and colored paper, creating thus a totally new art style.
Despite his genius, and although he started drawing and painting since childhood, going through different styles and period, Pablo Picasso was nearly 30 when he developed what would be his most famous and enduring creative style: cubism.
The performing arts are not short of late starters.
After a solid career as prima Ballerina at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, Margot Fonteyn was 42 and considering retirement, when she accepted to partner with a young Rudolf Nureyev. The duo became an international sensation, reviving Fonteyn’s career with greater success than ever before, extending her dancing years well into her 60s.
Famed Georgian Ballerina Nina Ananiashvilli was 36 when she received the Woman of the Year award from the International Biography Institute, and 40 when she received the Soul of the Dance award. Now at 57, she’s artistic director of the National Ballet Ensemble of Georgia – and continues dancing.
Although she started to sing professionally at age 19 (when she joined Ike Turner's band The Kings of Rhythm), Tina Turner didn't become hugely successful worldwide but until 1983, when she was already 44, becoming the oldest female solo artist to top the top 100 in the US, and kicking off a solo career in which she recorded, toured and performed sold-out shows well into her 60’s.
Similarly, Cher began her singing career during her teen years. But if she knew success and popularity in the 1960's, she made a strong come back in the 1980's, when she was already in her late 30's. In addition to substantial success in the music charts, she made her Broadway debut at age 36, and her silver screen debut a year later, earning a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the film "Moonstruck" at 41, an age at which most actresses are considering retirement.
Cindy Lauper was 30 by the time she hit it big with her LP "She's So Unusual", which became the first debut album by a female artist to achieve four top-five hits on Billboard, and being awarded a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1985, at a ripe age of 32. In 2013, at age 60, she won a Tony for Best Original Score for the musical “Kinky Boots”, and still remains active in the music world.
Soul and Funk singer Sharon Jones didn't begin her professional singing career but until she was 40, as the lead singer of the band Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings.
Although she started her career as interior designer in her 30s, Iris Apfel became a fashion icon at the ripe age of 84, thanks to her unique sense of style and her larger-than-life personality. In 2019, at the noble age of 96, she signed with the international modelling agency IMG as a fashion model, appearing in several fashion campaigns. Quick to adhere to new technologies, she had a following of 30 million on Instagram and posted regularly. "Get old, but don't get boring" was one of her mantras, and she followed it to the tee.
Multiple-award winner actress and model Cicely Tyson didn't start modeling but until she was 30, and she continued it with a much-honored acting career well into her 90s.
Science and Politics are also fertile grounds for late achievers.
After a youth shadowed by physical deformity and no achievements to show, Claudius became Emperor of Rome at age 50, and is remembered as one of the wisest and most influential Roman Emperors in history.
Deemed one of the best Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill had accrued an honorable list of failures, including failing High School three times, before he became Prime Minister, at age 62.
Despite her early gift for mathematics, Katherine Johnson was already 35 when she entered to work in her field at NASA, a career that would span for 35 years and would be crowned by some of the most impressive achievements in humankind.
Isaac Newton was 44 when he published what would be his most revolutionary work: the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which contained his Universal Law of Gravity.
Youth is a period of life credited with unending energy, inventiveness, creativity and risk-taking. But, as evidenced throughout history, all these qualities can be extended well beyond the commonly approved boundaries of age. There is no reason why it shouldn’t be so – unless we limit ourselves.
A good example of this, are the impressively long and successful careers of some, who continued creating well after retirement age: Duke Ellington (over 50 years of career), Louis Armstrong (50+), Bing Crosby (60+), David Bowie (60+), Coco Chanel (60+), Rudolf Nureyev (40+), The Rolling Stones (60+), Henri Matisse (50+), Pablo Picasso (70+), Thomas Alva Edison (+50), Benjamin Franklin (+60), among many more.
While the young are preoccupied with quick and impressive achievements, the trick is not just to get to the top, but to remain there.
Late achievers are not only versatile and persistent, but their success comes as a combination of factors which include talent and skills only conveyed through maturity, age, and experience: patience, self-control, discipline, resilience, good humor through adversity, etc.
History is rife with examples of late achievement, which come to show that success and achievement are not the monopoly of the young. Talents can flourish at any age. If cultivated, the human mind is fertile ground for creation at any period of life.
As Duke Ellington famously quipped when, at age 66, he did not receive the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for which he had been shortlisted : “Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn’t want me to get too famous too young”.
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Cover image: Coco Chanel, Cyndi Lauper, Sharon Jones, Henri Matisse, Colonel Sanders
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