People grow continuously throughout life. While that is a true statement, the picture is more nuanced than simple linear growth. What clearly continues throughout life are the obvious things like wisdom and judgment, which tend to improve well into old age. In terms of emotional regulation, most people genuinely get better at managing feelings over the decades, that that is not a universal truth by any means. Vocabulary and crystallized knowledge (accumulated facts, expertise) certainly continue to march forward. Personality traits like agreeableness and conscientiousness often improve into middle age as we work our way out of our youthful self-centeredness. We also keep improving our perspective-taking and tolerance for ambiguity, something experience teaches us is the inevitable condition of the world (we used to say that managing ambiguity was the single mot important trait of a good manager).
But not everything keeps getting better as we get older. Some things peak and then decline. Processing speed starts slowing in our 20s. Working memory and fluid intelligence (novel problem-solving) peak around 20–30. Those Instagram ads for restoring youthful memory power are mostly ho-ha. Physical capacity as in strength, speed, and VO2 max absolutely peak in the 20s–30s depending on the domain and the individual. Certain kinds of creative novelty-seeking seem to peak earlier in life, probably as our expectations start to settle in and our curiosity v. risk tolerance start to balance out.
And then there is the interesting middle ground like how some cognitive abilities like vocabulary and general knowledge peak in our 60s before they generally give way to a degree of aging. Moral reasoning can deepen throughout life, but doesn’t automatically, it requires engagement and reflection and can get derailed by bitterness from life’s disappointments. And social and emotional intelligence often improves right up until very late in life, again, if we stay engaged and open to social interaction on several key levels. We have all heard that maintaining a primary relationship is here to staying young. The research on that is pretty compelling, and yes, in meaningful ways having a solid primary relationship keeps us grounded and growing. The evidence shows that strong close relationships — particularly a primary partnership — are consistently associated with lower cortisol (chronic stress ages you at the cellular level), better immune function, faster wound healing, lower inflammation markers, which drive most age-related disease, and longer telomeres (a direct marker of cellular aging). The Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies on human flourishing (that has run for 80 years), found that the quality of close relationships was the single strongest predictor of healthy aging, more than wealth, IQ, or even genetics. As I said to Kim when I read that, “You owe me…and I owe you.”
The mechanisms of this seem to be emotional regulation (a secure partner helps buffer stress responses), behavioral accountability (partners encourage sleep, diet, medical care…and Kim keeps me from saying and writing things that for me into trouble), a sense of purpose and meaning (which has its own physiological signature…we wear such purpose on our sleeves), and physical touch (proven to directly lower blood pressure and cortisol). But relationship quality is what matters, not mere existence or presence. A high-conflict or lonely marriage can be worse for health than being contentedly single. Strong friendships and community can partially substitute for a primary partnership and they can certainly add to a strong primary relationship. And one of the more controversial things about all this is that the effect of a primary relationship are generally stronger for men than women statistically, possibly because men more often rely on a partner as their primary emotional resource rather than leaning on their pals or acquaintances.
The same patterns that exist for humans also exist for institutions set up by humans. Organizations, like people, grow, age and basically have a lifecycle, very much like we humans do. As ephemeral entities, they are not as constrained in that cycle by nature, but not entirely free of it either. Institutions are a reflection of their founders and leaders and so many of them cycle through in very similar 80 or so year intervals. The exceptions are institutions that organize themselves specifically for longevity as a primary goal, and even then they must work hard to keep the flame or their purpose alive and relatable to their current membership. And institutions/organizations show signs of vitality or decline that track closely with relationship quality. Institutions with strong internal trust and psychological safety tend to be more adaptive and resilient. High-conflict or low-trust cultures produce chronic organizational stress exhibiting high turnover, poor decision-making, reduced creativity, all of which are essentially aging signals. A sense of shared purpose and meaning within an institution functions similarly to the “why get up in the morning” effect seen in individuals. High social capital institutions (with density and quality of relationships within communities and institutions) just perform better and last longer.
I am involved with an entity where I am not a founder or leader, but am, de-facto, a very senior member and almost a senior statesman for the organization. I genuinely like the leadership team and admire the yin and yang of what they all bring to the party. The purpose and mission of the organization resonates with what I like to do and it adds considerably to my retirement existence. I would be missing something without it and hope to stay engaged with it for many years to come. But I have also seen the organization change as it has grown over the last seven years. It grew from two principals to three and has become a solid business of considerable repute in its chosen field of expertise. Each of the three principals operates quite differently and, as an outsider who is as close as an outsider can be, I see that they all add value in their own way. I have been in a successful partnership before and I can tell you that it is always the case that one goes through growing pains and wonders if the directorship is working right or if this is the highest and best calling for you. But the passage of time has an amazing ability to smooth out the growing pains and often, with perseverance, the growing pains fade in to muscle memory and the organization gets stronger. I am seeing that happen right before my eyes with this entity and when I see the angst (two of the three partners show the stress signs even though the third partner is the classic duck off who’s back the water just seems to run off), I try to tell them that it will melt away into success. There’s a small chance that they might even believe me.
The psychologist Erik Erikson framed the whole lifespan issue as a series of developmental challenges, arguing that genuine psychological growth never really stops, it just changes shape. Later researchers have shown that how people (and organizations) grow shifts with age: younger people optimize for acquiring and expanding, older people optimize for deepening and meaning-making. So the most valid observation is that growth and improvement never stop and the only constant is that they always hinge on high quality relationships. There’s always some dimension of genuine growth available at any age. The bottom line: a genuinely warm, secure set of relationships appears to be one of the most powerful “anti-aging” forces available, for both all of us as individuals and organizations that depend on individuals. Suffer the growing pains, they are the necessary precursor to success.