When I was closing in our my 40th birthday, I noticed something. I started to see it around 37 or 38, but I didn’t have words for it.

I started to notice that I had less energy than I did in my 20’s. Not just physically but also mentally, spiritually, and relationally. I also started to notice that some of the goals I had in my 20’s, things I cared about: being well known, having a large following online, or leading an enormous church, started to feel hollow. It isn’t that they were wrong goals; I just started to wonder if they were worth my time and energy.

I remember talking to another pastor who was about to move his church into a new, huge facility. It was the second building campaign he had led, and honestly, for pastors, he had reached the top. I asked him if he was excited, and he said, “I guess.” He said, “Honestly, this is great and all, but I wonder what I missed on the way to this.”

When you aren’t at the top of the mountain, it is hard to understand how people who get to the top can feel ambivalent or empty about it.

In my teens and 20’s and maybe this is or was right for you. You are proving yourself. You are figuring out what you are good at, what you will spend your life on, you are building your competency. Climbing ladders, stepping over people to get to the top, you are forging your way. 

For some of us, the change that happens in life is that those goals feel not worth it anymore, or we wonder, “what was I thinking.”

For others of us, we don’t hit those goals, and it is discouraging. 

For others, we hit all of our goals and wonder, is that all? We are convinced that hitting those milestones would feel a certain way, but they didn’t. 

I was talking to a counselor about this, and he told me, “Josh, that makes sense.” Of course, I leaned in and said, “tell me more.”

He said the first part of your life is about competency. The middle part of your life is about community, who you will do that competency with. You are figuring out what matters for the rest of your life. This is what David Brooks calls The two mountains. 

Then he told me, It’s the reason we feel kind of blah about life at different times. You run after things that you thought mattered, and at the time, they might have seemed like a huge deal, but now they don’t. He told me that is what you are searching for, and that is living a significant life. 

This is why, when you see a guy in his 50’s with an open shirt, a balding ponytail in a yellow Miata, we wonder what is wrong with him. He is still chasing after the first mountain.

The problem is that as we get older, we don’t have the energy to climb the first mountain. This is what leads many leaders to burn out and give up. If we can make the switch to understanding who we want to use our strengths and talents with, we last longer in the leadership game.

The problem, as many authors point out and many leaders discover, our world is built for the ladder climb for the company building. We are unsure how to navigate what comes after that. But sustainability is found in bringing these two mountains, these two circles of competency and community together.