In economics, ‘opportunity cost’ is the potential profit someone misses out on from choosing one alternative over another. People rarely consider the cost of the choices they don’t make. However, with tight labour markets, the rise of remote working and the potential of artificial intelligence to lower the cost of starting a business, the number of opportunities not taken is larger than ever.
The book Second Act by Henry Oliver tells the stories of multiple people who experienced success later in life than expected, such as prime minister Margaret Thatcher, explorer Audrey Sutherland and chief executive of the Washington Post Katharine Graham. By looking at these late bloomers, and many others, Oliver seeks to find the common characteristics among those that continue to progress late into life.
A short summary is they all pursued their broad intellectual interests early in life and were then open to an opportunity when it was presented to them. In the case of Graham and Sutherland, this chance initially appeared to be misfortune. Graham’s husband had been the head of the Washington Post before his suicide pushed her unexpectedly into the role. In the 1970s, she then led the paper during its reporting on the Pentagon Papers and Watergate scandal. For Sutherland, it was a divorce from her husband in the 1950s and a flight over Hawaii that encouraged her to pursue a career in exploring. In 1980, at the age of 60 Sutherland then paddled alone almost 1,000 miles around the coast of Alaska in an inflatable kayak.