Exhausted at 50? Wrong question.

Treasury’s latest Intergenerational Report landed last month, and it’s been rattling around in my head ever since.

There’s plenty in it about what Australia might look like 40 years from now. An ageing population. Longer, healthier lives. AI, productivity, and what all of that means for the economy. Treasury even expects workforce participation to keep rising until the end of the 2030s.

But the question it sparked for me was much more personal.

What if we have more years of capacity ahead of us than we’ve been conditioned to expect? And what will we do with them?

At almost exactly the same time, I’ve been watching Matlock.

If you haven’t seen it, Kathy Bates plays Madeline “Matty” Matlock, a woman in her 70s who talks her way back into a prestigious law firm. What fascinates me isn’t simply that the lead is an older woman. It’s the way the series plays with our assumptions about older women, visibility and power.

Matty is constantly underestimated because of her age. And she knows it. She uses it. Being overlooked isn’t her weakness, it’s her cover.

Which made me wonder whether our thinking about ageing has kept pace with the reality of longer lives.

Because I speak to an extraordinary number of women in their late 40s and 50s who are exhausted, sidelined, or both. They’re accomplished, capable and often at the height of their expertise. And many are quietly asking themselves: how much longer can I keep doing this?

Perhaps that’s the wrong question.

Exhaustion at 50 isn’t telling us our ambition, relevance or capacity is running out. It’s telling us the way we’ve been working for the past 20 or 30 years has stopped working for us.

I’ve written before about changing the currency as our careers progress. At some point, effort, hours and relentless proving can’t be the main thing we trade in. By now we’ve built up something far more valuable: judgement, relationships, reputation and influence.

So change the exchange rate.

And change the horizon while you’re at it.

If you assume your most influential years are nearly behind you, you’ll make one set of decisions. You’ll play it safe, run down the clock and wait to be shown the door. But if you allow for another 10, 20 or even 30 years to learn, lead, earn and build, you’ll make very different ones.

This isn’t an argument for working until we drop. Nor is it an argument against retirement.

It’s an argument for deciding for yourself. The board seat. The business you keep putting off. The portfolio career. Or simply doing a lot less of what drains you and a lot more of what you’re brilliant at.

Matty Matlock doesn’t wait for anyone to decide whether she’s still relevant. She just gets on with it, and lets them work it out later.

So here’s the question I haven’t been able to shake:

If you stopped assuming your most powerful years were behind you, what would you do differently with the years ahead?

I’d love to know what you think.

Now, back to binge-watching Matlock. I have research to do. 😇