The Relevance Paradox: Slumping, Coasting, or Upshifting?

1. The Landscape: Slumping, Hugging, and Drifting

If you read recent industry reports, you get a singular, bleak picture: the mid-career professional is in crisis. The market is defined by “Job Hugging,” where veterans cling to roles out of economic terror, afraid of being replaced by AI, automation, or younger, cheaper talent.

But I think crisis is often too loud a word for what is actually happening. A more precise term is Drift.

Drift usually begins without even you knowing. You are still delivering. You are still busy. Your calendar is full. Yet, the work feels less connected to the next wave of value. The market has been changing around you and you can feel it. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report estimates that 44% of workers’ core skills will be disrupted in the coming years.

This creates a “Relevance Paradox”: You have experience, emotional capacity, and resilience that colleagues half your age have not had time to build. These are real assets. But they pay dividends only when combined with deliberate efforts to stay current. If you rely on experience alone, you aren’t leading; you are drifting.

2. The Three Common Reactions

When faced with this drift, most professionals fall into one of three camps. To navigate your 50s, you must honestly assess which one you currently occupy.

Reaction A: The Downshift (The “Kohli-Rohit” Protocol)

There is a counter-trend the headlines often miss: competent, high-level leaders voluntarily asking for demotions or individual contributor roles. They are exhausted. They have done the math on the “Senior Leadership Tax”—the 24/7 availability and the crushing mental load, and decided the ROI is no longer there.

We see a perfect parallel in modern cricket. Consider the recent strategic moves by Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. After winning the T20 World Cup in 2024, both legends announced their retirement from the T20 International format.

Did they retire because they “slumped”? No. They retired from T20s because they recognized a biological reality: The shortest format is a game of raw speed, reflexes, and high-risk improvisation, attributes that peak in your 20s.

By stepping away from T20s, they didn’t quit cricket. They “Downshifted” the volume of their workload to preserve their quality for ODIs. They consolidated their energy to remain elite where it mattered most.

I respect the Downshift. If you have hit your financial independence number, or if your health is fraying, stepping back to a focused niche is a strategic win. It is not failure; it is prioritization.

Reaction B: The Coast (The Kodak Error)

Then there are the “Coasters.” They haven’t updated their mental models in a decade, yet they face no immediate crisis. They float along, seemingly immune to the “Slump.”

Usually, these professionals are protected by Deep Institutional Knowledge. They manage the legacy systems that no one else understands. They aren’t stressed, and they aren’t striving.

We see this in the corporate world, too. Think Kodak/ Blockbuster. Their coasting cost them dearly.

Coasting feels safe, but it is the riskiest position of all. The moment the legacy system is replaced (digital cameras, streaming), or the friendly CEO retires, the Coaster’s value proposition evaporates overnight. As Clayton Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma teaches us, doing nothing is often the most dangerous choice of all during a platform shift.

Reaction C: The Job Hugger (The Panic Response)

Finally, we have the “Job Huggers.” These professionals are terrified of obsolescence. They try to keep up by frantically “upskilling”—learning the latest AI tools or software attempting to out-run the 25-year-olds on execution.

This path is exhausting and biologically inefficient. As we will see in the next section, trying to compete on new tricks fights against your own neurology.

3. The Science of Relevance

Why does Job Hugging feel so difficult? Because it ignores two fundamental realities: human biology and market dynamics.

Biology: Fluid vs. Crystallized Intelligence

This distinction was first defined by psychologist Raymond Cattell in the 1960s and further explored by social scientist Arthur Brooks in The Atlantic. Job Huggers often rely on the wrong one.

The table below summarizes how these intelligence types map to different career phases.

The Market: The Shrinking Half-Life of Skills

The second factor is the speed of decay. Research highlighted in the Harvard Business Review indicates that the half-life of a learned skill has dropped to less than five years, with technical skills expiring in as little as 2.5 years.

This means the “learn more” strategy is broken. If you spend your energy learning a specific tool, that tool may be obsolete by the time you master it. The implication is not “panic and learn everything.” The implication is that course completion is not the unit of progress.

4. The Solution: Upshifting

If Downshifting limits potential, Coasting invites disaster, and Job Hugging fights biology, what is left?

The answer is Upshifting.

Upshifting is the refusal to compete on “doing” and the commitment to compete on “thinking.” It is a deliberate move from being a “Producer” (who uses tools) to a “Synthesizer” (who uses judgment).

Core Principle: Evidence Over Learning

A common trap for the mid-career professional is taking endless courses without anchoring them to work outcomes and this is so clear on LinkedIn people flaunting their newly completed courses. Nothing wrong with that, but learning only stays relevant when tied to specific applications.

The New Rule: Stop collecting learning. Start producing evidence.

Instead of taking a course on “AI for Business,” lead a pilot project that uses AI to cut costs by 15%. The certificate proves you watched a video; the project proves you can generate value.

Why Upshifting Wins

• It uses your Biological Advantage: You stop trying to be faster than the AI. You start being wiser than the AI. You use your Crystallized Intelligence (Gc) to see risks and patterns the algorithm misses.
• It protects your Energy: Instead of grinding 12 hours a day, you focus your limited energy on high-leverage decisions.

5. The Economics of Upshifting: A Hard Truth

We need to talk about money. There is a common frustration I hear from peers: “I have upshifted my thinking, but my salary has plateaued.”

This is the uncomfortable reality of the mid-career curve. In many industries, salary growth does flatten after 50. But here is the reframe:

• Job Hugging protects your current salary for 2 years (until you burn out or are made redundant).
• Upshifting extends your earning lifespan by 10 years.

The goal at this stage isn’t necessarily a 20% raise every year; it’s Durability. It’s ensuring that at 58, you are still a Must-Have asset, not a Nice-to-Have expense on a spreadsheet. We are playing for the long game, call it the Career Annuity and not just the annual bonus.

6. The Strategic Paths: Climb, Shift, or Rebuild

To implement Upshifting, you must choose a lane. The Coast to 65″ plan does not sound right. You need to frame your next phase through one of three specific paths which we see across several management writing:

Drift happens when you avoid choosing one of these paths and the environment chooses for you.

7. The Protocol: Building the Relevance Playbook

If you want to Upshift, you need a protocol. This is not about intent; it is about action.

8. The Holistic View: Emerging Shadows

As I observe the landscape in 2026, I am also noticing “shadow trends” that the mainstream reports haven’t fully quantified yet.

The “Invisible Network” Effect
At 25, you get jobs by applying on LinkedIn. At 50, you get jobs by being tapped on the shoulder. Upshifting builds your reputation as a Sage —the person people call when they are in trouble. This Invisible Network is your true insurance policy against ageism. If you are hugging your job, your network is decaying. If you are Upshifting, your network is compounding.

The Rise of the “Portfolio Executive”
I am seeing more 50-year-olds rejecting the binary choice of Job Hugging or Retiring. Instead, they are building a portfolio. They hold three “fractional” leadership roles at smaller companies rather than one crushing role. This creates antifragility if one income stream breaks, the others hold. It is the ultimate form of Upshifting: selling your wisdom by the slice, rather than renting your time by the hour.

Conclusion: The Fork in the Road

The Mid-Career Crisis is not inevitable. It is a fork in the road.

You can Downshift, preserving your health but capping your influence.
You can Coast, enjoying the calm before the inevitable storm.
Or, you can Upshift.

I believe our 50s are not a time for winding down, but for maximizing leverage. It is rational to plan for 20–25 more years of meaningful contribution. The risk is not that you lack experience. The risk is that you allow drift to persist until you lose options.

We have the patterns, the experience, the wisdom, and if we train for it, we have the energy too. Don’t let the headlines tell you you’re slumping. You’re just Upshifting.