The 25@50 Effect – Why I’m Still the Fittest Guy in the Room: Leading Gen Z’s

Summary: In a workplace full of younger talent, I’ve realised my real mirror isn’t my peers, it’s the team I lead. This post breaks down what I call the 25@50 Effect: staying fit and future-ready enough at 50+ that Gen Z doesn’t just respect you as a boss – they quietly hope they end up like you. It’s built on three “batteries”: physical strength, mental curiosity, and emotional purpose – an operating system for relevance, not vanity

The old narrative of the winding down phase at 50+ is dying down. In today’s increasing lifespans but shorter healthspans, 50s isn’t the beginning of the end; rather it is halftime, moment to regroup, re-strategize, and come out for the second half with more wisdom, better tactics, and renewed energy.

And given the changing workplace dynamics with tools that are faster, the teams that are younger, and the expectations that are higher, resting on the laurels of experience is no longer a safety net, it’s a trap. To stay not just employed, but relevant after 50, you need a strategy and that’s what this post is about.

There’s a moment in every senior professional’s life usually somewhere between 45 and 55 when you realise your real mirror is no longer your peers. It’s the 25-year-olds you lead.

They’re fast, digital-first, fluent with new tools, and plugged into what’s coming next. In my world of a fast-scaling Global Capability Centre where most of the floor sits in the 24–26 age bracket that contrast is right in front of me every day.

They are, quite literally, the “25” in 25@50. And I am the “50”.

I see my younger self in their ambition, impatience and hunger. They see their future self in me – a version of 50+ that’s still strong, sharp, relevant, and visibly alive.

That mutual reflection is what I call the 25@50 effect: staying so fit and so future-ready at 50+ that Gen Z doesn’t just respect you as a boss, they think, “If I end up like that at 50, I’ve done well.”

The Push-Up Moment That Rewired the Floor

We once ran a one-minute push-up challenge at work where we are based at a coworking facility. About 60-70 people from all age groups from different companies participated, but most I would say were 22 to 27 year olds. I also joined in more as a gesture of solidarity than anything else.

At 52, I won the challenge by some margin. I did 72 and the 2nd spot 62.

The reaction across the floor was bigger than the event itself. People clapped, shouted, recorded videos, shared it around.

However, what they didn’t see was the years of quiet, boring consistency behind that win – strength training, better food, mobility, sleep. What they saw was the result.

But the real impact wasn’t about a number of push-ups, it was about what it symbolised:

• That a senior leader can still be physically fit
• That age doesn’t automatically mean decline
• That you can lead from the front – literally

For me, it was a confirmation of something I write about in detail in How Not to Age: Science-Backed Strategies for Lifelong Vitality (The 25@50 Pillar Guide): aging well is not an accident. It’s an operating system.

Burnout is real

More than half of senior leaders worldwide report burnout. Across North America, Europe and Asia-Pac, a Deloitte LifeWorks study found that over 80% of senior leaders report a level of exhaustion typical of burnout risk, and 51% have seriously considered leaving their role through resignation, retirement, a less demanding job, or a long break.

A separate survey of several thousand senior leaders in the US reported 72% of them feeling burned out, not just “a bit tired” but used up at the end of the workday.

And leadership burnout is still rising: another report says burnout among leaders jumped from 52% in 2023 to 56% in 2024, with many organisations losing a significant portion of their leadership bench as a result.

So when I talk about push-ups, fitness, sleep, AI leverage and purpose at 50+, it’s not vanity. It’s risk management. Most senior roles today are structurally set up to burn people out. If you don’t build your own 25@50-style operating system, the default setting is exhausted-and-checked-out, not fit-and-future-ready.

From Manager to Model (and Back Again)

Over the last year, I’ve personally interviewed hundreds of Gen Z candidates and hired nearly 65 of them. You can’t do that and stay detached. You start to understand how they think about work, money, risk, meaning, and their own future.

Many of them now stop by for one-on-one conversations:
“Am I in the right role?”
“Should I switch domains?”
“How career growth looks like?”

I don’t treat these as interruptions. I treat them as part of the job. At 50+, you’re not just running an operation. You’re quietly creating a reference image of what a good future can look like.

And the funny thing is while they see me as a mentor, they are also teaching me all the time, a sort of a reverse mentoring. I help them with judgment, unspoken rules, long-term thinking. They help me stay plugged into the present with new tools, platforms, shifts in culture, how they actually consume information. I give them depth, they give me freshness. It keeps my mental software updated, which I think is essential when your team is half your age. Best would be to find a mentor under 30.

A lot of new hires confess about the automation in the tools and if their role will still be relevant. I always give them the same answer:

“Your real goal should be to make your current role redundant to an extent that you move to a higher value work'”.

Jobs don’t vanish, tasks do. Roles evolve. People move up if they’re the ones pushing the evolution, not resisting it.

And then I go one step further – I encourage them to explore passions, build something on the side, start a blog, learn a skill, do a passion project, create content, volunteer, or experiment with entrepreneurship. Not because work doesn’t matter, but because a strong sense of self outside work makes you more resilient inside work.

Over time, that has created a quiet bond. They respect the title, yes. But they also respect the life choices behind it – the fitness, the way I show up, the curiosity, the emotional connect, the fact that I have interests and a purpose of being beyond my job.

That’s the bridge between a 25-year-old and a 50-year-old in the same room. And it’s also the story behind About 25@50 and across my Lifestyle & Purpose posts – the idea that you’re allowed to be more than your titles.

Running on Three Batteries at 50+

By this age, most of us are carrying a full load at home (aging parents, children’s future, EMIs etc.) and at work (large teams, budgets, deadlines, strategy) all of it with one body that we have. The weight doesn’t get lighter. You just get better or worse at carrying it.

So, saying “the fittest guy in the room” is not just about looking better, it’s about carrying that load for the long-term. And that longevity at home or at work leadership comes from three batteries working together.

1. Physical Battery: Being the fittest guy in the room

This is the obvious one. Without a strong, well-maintained body, everything else degrades faster.

That’s why I treat physical longevity as a non-negotiable infra foundation for leadership. Strength training to keep the frame strong. Joint-friendly movements and walks to stay mobile. Cleaner controlled eating to control inflammation. Sleep as a hard boundary.

This isn’t about six-pack aesthetics. It’s about being able to turn up on a Tuesday morning, after a late global call the night before, still clear in the head and strong in the body.

If you want a simple, practical entry point into looking fresher and younger, start with:
The Essential 4-Step Anti-Aging Skincare Routine for Men Over 50.

And if you want the full blueprint behind the push-ups and performance, go deeper into:
The Longevity Protocol — Why Your Peak-Performance Workout Is Now a Liability (and How to Future-Proof Your Body)

2. Mental Battery: Curiosity and Staying the the Game longer

The physical side is visible. The mental side is quieter but just as important.

We are surrounded by AI, automation, data, and what have you, us leaders over 50 who stop learning quietly step aside. Not by choice but because the game moves past them.

Leaders like Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos to name a few are relevant not because they’re older; they’re relevant because they keep learning. They read, they listen, they change their minds when the world gives them new data. They keep fitness as their top agenda. Bezos underwent from a slender, ‘geeky’ physique to mascular ‘buff’ appearance in his 50s.

For me that means reading widely, carving out pockets of quiet thinking time, staying close to new tools, and letting my Gen Z team reverse-mentor me on what’s changing.

Shed the ‘expert’ trap. Instead embody ‘tell me more’ thinking. Cultivate ‘Shoshin’, the Zen concept of a beginner’s mind. Don’t compete on speed, you are bound to lose, instead compete on synthesis or pattern recognition – not ‘how we used to do it’, but ‘how this pattern connects to the big picture’.

The goal isn’t to know everything. The goal is to never be done learning. This attitude alone keeps you mentally decades younger than your birth date.

3. Emotional Battery: Purpose & Happiness at 50+

At 50+, happiness isn’t about constant highs. It’s about living in a way that feels aligned, even when the load is heavy.

That alignment comes from a clear sense of why you’re doing all this. For me, 25@50 is part of that answer – a way to turn everything I’m learning (and unlearning) about aging well into something other people can use.

Emotional battery is charged through small daily choices: real conversations, movement, time away from screens, a bit of reflection, and regular check-ins with yourself:
“Is this how I want 60 to feel?”

When your emotional battery is charged, responsibilities feel less like burden and more like meaning.

Happiness at this age isn’t a constant high. Well, it is constant but more like a background whirr state that says, “This is heavy, I enjoy it and it’s worth carrying.”

Like it or not, how you look and physically carry yourself still affects how people experience your leadership.

Like I’ve said earlier in other posts, this is not about chasing youth. It’s about signalling that you haven’t checked out of your own life and that you respect yourself enough to look after your body, skin, posture, and grooming.

A 50+ leader who looks physically present and well-kept doesn’t come across as trying to be 25. He comes across as someone who hasn’t given up on himself. That, in turn, makes it easier for others to trust him with bigger decisions and heavier responsibilities.

That’s why things like skincare aren’t fluff for me, rather they’re part of the operating system. If you’ve ignored this dimension, the 4-step skincare routine is a low-effort starting point to pick a couple of areas to start with.

The 25@50 Effect

When I walk a floor full of 25-year-olds, I don’t feel out of place. I feel like proof.

Proof that you can be 50+ and still be strong, relevant, learning, experimenting, laughing, building, mentoring – and yes, still winning the occasional push-up challenge 🙂

That’s the 25@50 effect: not just staying in the room when your team is half your age,
but being the person they quietly hope to resemble when they get here.

That’s me 🙂 trying to escape my house dodging chores for some weekend fun!