Forty Lessons at Forty

I recently turned forty, which is the age where you go from being an older young person to a younger old person.I tend to do all my existential angst-ing in the final year ahead of a decade milestone. I stressed throughout my twenty-ninth year under the tyranny of thirty before I crossed that threshold.Ditto for this one.I’ve been calling myself a “forty-year old man” for the last twelve months, so it feels totally normal now.Author at 39 years and 9 months of age with 12 month old childThe truth is, I was much more disappointed with my life at 29 than at 39.At 29, I had founded and shut down one startup and struggling to land my first product job. I had gotten out of a toxic relationship and frustrated with dating. I had pay out an unfair settlement to a copyright troll so I was not in a strong financial position.My ambition back then was more generic: start a unicorn company, lead a team of hundreds of people, get profiled in major media outlets, see eight figures in my bank…