Tommy Talk: SUCCESS HAS NO AGE LIMIT

On this episode of “Tommy Talk,” Tommy discusses how some of the sweetest successes come later in life. Success has no age limit—many of the world’s most inspiring achievers reached their greatest milestones in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. With age comes wisdom, perspective, and the confidence to pursue your purpose without apology. If you’ve ever felt like your time has passed, this episode is your reminder that your potential has no expiration date.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, guys, welcome to Tommy Talk, and today's topic is
success has no age limit. Man, I am super passionate
about this. I think we live in a day and
age where people glorify achieving wild success early in your life,
and that's amazing. If you do, that's truly amazing. There's

(00:23):
so many lists out there like Forbes thirty under thirty
and Top you know ten Rising under twenty year old,
and I think that's all really super valid and amazing,
and all success should be celebrated. But the reality is
many people reach their highest levels of success later in life,
but we don't talk about it, and society doesn't glorify

(00:45):
and praise that in the same ways, success has no
age limit. You can reach your wildest success way later
in life, and in fact many people have. But the
stories we hear about are the Mark Zuckerberg's who when
he was nineteen he started Facebook, and Bill Gates he
got Microsoft off the ground when he was twenty three.
So their stories seem to suggest that success comes early,

(01:07):
or maybe not at all, because that's what's constantly profiled.
But I'm interested in the people who reached those levels
of success later forties, fifties, even sixties, because so much
of that is true and is out there, we just
don't know about it. So here are some examples just
so you know that you might be surprised by Eric

(01:28):
Wand he founded Zoom at the age of forty one.
Zoom one of the biggest things in the world. Coleman Domingo,
who is a buddy of mine, at fifty years old,
after three decades of work, started reaching some of the
highest levels of success in his life, Oscar nominees and
getting movies off the ground that he's starring in and

(01:49):
world's acclaim and all of it started happening for him
at fifty, which is unbelievable. Arianna Huffington. She was first
a writer penning byiographies, but at fifty five she launched
the Huffington Post and named herself editor in chief at
fifty five, which became a huge, obviously mega company. And

(02:12):
he was two more. Leo Goodwin, he was writing insurance
policies before he decided to open the government employees insurance
company known as Geico, and he did that at fifty
years old, per the company website. And one more for you.
Vera Wang. She was a figure skater and a journalist
before entering the fashion industry at forty and became the

(02:34):
iconic Vera Wang. So these are just certain examples of
people who have reached beautiful, crazy levels of success later
in life. And again it's not really talked about that,
but I think that experience brings wisdom and perspective. So
all your years working allows you to make a pivot
if you want to one day to do something that

(02:56):
maybe you never saw coming or that you always wanted
to do. So it's a really cool thing. And I
also want to take a minute to say that success
is a very subjective thing. My definition of success is
waking up every day and being proud of the work
that you do. It's kind of a corny definition, but
I think that if you can do that, you're successful.
I don't think it has to necessarily only mean a

(03:18):
monetary thing, but I do think there are a lot
of people who have goals professionally and it's amazing and
they want to reach high levels of success. So that's
why this conversation is important for me to have, because
just because you're forty or fifty or sixty, it doesn't
mean you're done, doesn't mean your time is over you
can do anything you want to. I'd say American dream

(03:38):
baby like, it doesn't mean it's over if you're out
of your twenties or thirties. And I'm very, very, very
passionate about this. The idea that you have to have
it all figured out, it's a social construct. It's not reality.
You don't always have to have it all figured out.
I mean there are certain things like if you're a doctor,
yeah you kind of do. You have to go to
medical school and plan for that. But I guess you

(04:01):
can become a doctor later in life if you really
want to and if you have the means to so,
you know, the have it all figured out is definitely
a social construct. I never imagine I'd be where I
am in my career. I couldn't have dreamed this. I
didn't know this would all happen to me, and it did.
So you don't always have to have a plan for it.

(04:21):
I guess passion and purpose will get you there, and
those things don't expire. Those things don't expire. Passion and
purpose is something that if it's in you, you feel it,
it fuels you. You're motivated to keep going and go
after what you want to go after like it's in
the core of your body. It doesn't expire. So if
there's something you want to do, you should do it.

(04:43):
And I love the examples of the people that I
just talked about because it's it's inspiring to me that
you can possibly do whatever you want to do at
any point of your career without feeling like it is
too late. I also think success means that at different
times in your life. Success can mean career, but it

(05:05):
can also mean relationships. It can also mean family, it
can mean personal growth. I mean all of these things
which can blossom at any age. There's no blueprint. I
think I have a lot of friends who are having
kids later in life and they feel like it's everything
they want and they feel like they're successful, which I
think is a really beautiful thing. And then there are

(05:27):
people who choose not to have kids because their career
is so fulfilling for them they don't want to have
anything take away from that, and that's okay too, you know,
that's okay too. I think that those are different definitions
of success, and both they're valid. Both they're super super valid.
But your potential really doesn't have an expiration date, and

(05:48):
that's the key thing here, And it's easy in this
world of social media to look around and be like,
oh my god, I'm not successful. Look at what X, Y,
and Z you're doing. I'm not doing it. What am
I doing wrong? I'm never going to be who I
want to be or get to where I want to
get to. And that's not true. That's just simply not true.
Because if you do have the passion to do something,
you can go and do it. You can go and

(06:10):
do it, and you can pivot. And that's the day
and age we live in now where I feel like
the pivoting and making your dreams happen is up to
you at the level that you want to do it.
So if you're sending in a job where you're like,
oh god, I don't feel like this is what I
want or I don't feel like I'm successful, then you
can go make your future whatever you want to make

(06:31):
at any point. It's not too late. It really isn't
too late. And I want to stress that in this
day and age, when you can create anything that you
want and put it online and make an Etsy shop
and I don't know, sell goods on the internet, like,
you can create so much now that you don't have
to feel like you're trapped doing something you don't want
to do forever. And I really, really really love that

(06:57):
people who are considered in the second act of their
life are showing us all that the most seemingly impossible
things are quite possible. They really are. And yes, it
takes a tremendous amount of hard work and effort and resources,
and sometimes people have a foot in the door and
sometimes people have a one up on us, and that's okay.

(07:18):
Doesn't mean we're gonna work any less hard than somebody
else who's trying to achieve something, but it can happen.
It can really really happen. And I, oh, there's an
alarm going by, and I feel like, where as Beyonce says,
ring the alarm, because like this is such a yeah
kind of conversation. My Beyonce fans will get that song reference,
but that's a New York baby. Sorry for the noise.

(07:39):
So I just I'm really passionate about this whole second
act thing, and I want to spotlight more and more
people who are doing such incredible work later in life.
It's not too late. It's not too late. Age is
seriously a number, and if anyone's telling you otherwise, screw
then screw them. And again I don't want everyone listening
too thinking six this only means making a certain amount

(08:01):
of money, because that's not the case. It just means
being happy in what you do. And if you do
have a big dream that seems larger than life and
not achievable, it is achievable, and your age doesn't stop
you from making that happen. It really doesn't. I look
at everything I've done in my career, and I've had
many jobs. I've worked in corporate America, I was an actor,
I worked in social media, I was a consultant, and

(08:23):
now I work in television in hosting. But all of
that helped and inform me to get to where I
am today without a lot of those experiences. I want
to be as good as I am in my job,
not saying I'm great, but like I've developed a skill
set over the years that allows me to do what
I do, and it all had a reason and a
purpose for me being here today. So I think that
it's really important to look at your whole collective journey

(08:44):
as really important. Like nothing you've done up to this
point has no meaning, It's all getting you to where
you either are right now and you're happy at or
where you still want to go. But you're not stopping
achieving what you want to achieve because you hit a
certain age. No, in fact, all that, all of that
rich history you have is going to only help you.

(09:05):
And I have to say I'm very grateful that I'm
a millennial and I grew up in the time I
did without so much social media and digital you know,
the digital world around me, because I do feel like
there's skills you develop without all of that that help
you to where you want to go today, and they
help kind of refine your skills. And sometimes I do

(09:26):
worry for the younger generation, you know that will they
have those same sharpened skills. I hope, So, I really hope. So.
I have two brothers, you know, ones a senior in
college and one graduated a few years ago, and they
seem to be killing it and doing well. But they
work hard. So I think there's a lot of hard
work that goes into achieving what you want to achieve.
But my bottom line is age is just a number.

(09:48):
There's no limit to success, there's no expiration date. You
want to achieve something, you go for it, you do it,
you don't stop till you feel like you want to stop.
And don't compare your success to anyone else because we
all have our own journey and people who are super
successful in work or they're perceived as super successful, might
not feel successful in their home life. So just remember

(10:11):
success is a very personal definition, which to me again
means waking up and being proud of the work that
you do. And when I say that, I mean the
work in my career, the work as a husband, my
work as a friend, my work as a son, all
of it, it all is one. But but those amazing
aspirations you have for your career, just remember there's there

(10:32):
are so many people that you don't even know about
who have achieved the unimaginable at different points of their
life that are considered later. So this is your reminder
never too late. I am so excited to see what
each and every one of you are going to continue
creating in your life and your journey. And let's go, baby,

(10:54):
Let's fucking go. Sorry, mom, she listens and hates when
I cursed, but sometimes you just need to have a life.
Let's fucking go out there, right Until next time, guys,
I've Never Said This Before is hosted by Me Tommy Dedario.
This podcast is executive produced by Andrew Puglisi at iHeartRadio
and by Me Tommy, with editing by Joshua Colaudney. I've

(11:18):
Never Said This Before is part of the Elvis Duran
podcast Network on iHeart Podcasts. For more, rate, review and
subscribe to our show and if you liked this episode,
tell your friends. Until next time, I'm Tommy de Dario