If you’re in your 50’s and 60’s  and been thinking about, reading about and doing research on , you’ve probably noticed an annoying truth: 

Most advice and perspectives, particularly online, comes in extremes… 

• “Go all in.” 

• “Quit your job.” 

• “Move to Portugal.” 

• “Sell everything you own and start again in Malaysia.” 

• “Hustle harder.” 

• “Stop doing everything completely today.” 

But real life, especially something as important as the next chapter of life, is rarely solved by swinging from one extreme to the other. 

Which is why one of the most useful ideas you can borrow from ancient philosophy is this: 

The golden mean. 

Not as a bland “moderation in everything” cliché…but as a skill: learning to find the right middle for you, in this upcoming chapter of your life. 

And when you combine that with the What Happens Next approach, curiosity, values, wellbeing, rapid low-cost experimentation, you get a blueprint for a next chapter that’s not just “different” but genuinely brilliant. 

For over two millennia the ancient Greek philosopher, thinker and polymath, Aristotle, is still regularly quoted. I reckon part of the reason for this is he asked questions we still care about today including… 

“What does it actually mean to live well?” 

Not to look successful. 
Not to win – whatever that means 
Not to optimise every aspect of our lives. 

But to live a life that feels worth living. 

You see Aristotle didn’t believe life was there to be hacked. He was super clear about one thing which we still understand today. 

Human life is complex, contextual, and deeply personal. 

Aristotle understood that there’s no single blueprint for a good life because it all depends on who you are, what you value your collective wisdom, knowledge and experience and much much more… 

However the key Arisotlean insight from this video is that many virtues are found between two vices: one of excess and one of deficiency.  

Courage, for example, sits between rashness and cowardice.  

This is where people misunderstand it. 

The golden mean is not: 

• “Always pick the halfway point.” 

• “Play small.” 

• “Never take risks.” 

It’s closer to: 

So the Golden mean isn’t a number. It’s a judgement. 
A form of wisdom. 

It’s finding the right middle ground for us between the extremes. 

And this is why it’s so relevant to the next chapter of your life: because your next chapter is full of choices where the right answer is personal and contextual. 

In the What Happens Next world, we talk a lot about why this stage of life can feel messy: you may be renegotiating identity, structure, purpose, routine, friendships, even your relationship with time.  

And when you’re in that kind of transition, the brain tends to reach extremes because extremes feel decisive. Extreme decisions are often simple and clear cut. 

You see it everywhere: 

When it comes to work we burn ourselves out so we decide we should stop completely. 

When it comes to health, we lurch from no activity to deciding we should have a grueling 6 day a week workout routine. 

When it comes to Purpose, we feel we need a BIG mission or no purpose at all. 

And 

When it comes to ‘retirement’ either we’re fully retired or we’re continuing to work full time with no nuance in between. 

I see if with people’s relationships with money all the time. Instead of getting a decent level of balance between spending and saving, many of us are particularly good at one or the other…when in reality finding the right balance might be a better way to go! 

I’ve recently been thinking about the Golden mean and finding balance a lot recently because I’ve written a lot about it in the What Happens next book. 

The book by the way is out soon and if you’d like to be one of the first people to grab a copy feel free to join the waiting list which you can find here. 

In the book I talk about the fact that there’s no such thing as a perfect balance. After all not everything is perfectly alligned all the time. However it’s also worth asking yourself some questions if you feel that you’re too far out of balance.  

Questions like:- 

• What parts of my life are currently out of kilter and need rebalancing? 

• What areas could I spend some time to improve on? 

And 

• What help might I benefit from to support me to do this? 

For many people, the choice feels binary: work full-time or stop completely. 

In the upcoming What Happens Next book I recommend considering something much more psychologically realistic: a gradual flight path. This might look like reducing days or hours, testing what less work feels like, adjusting as you go.  

That’s the mean: 

• not “never stop,” 

• not “stop overnight,” 

• but “shift with intention.” 

I talk a lot in the upcoming book about two unhelpful money extremes: 

• the insatiable pursuit of “more,” even when it harms wellbeing 

• an avoidant relationship with money that undermines security and choice  

The mean isn’t “money doesn’t matter.” 
It’s: money as a tool to live the life you truly want 

Also, when the next chapter feels huge, people either overthink (paralysis) or blow everything up (reinvention as escape). 

This is exactly why the project leans on rapid low-cost experimentation: small, reversible steps that reduce risk, increase clarity, and lower intimidation.  

That’s golden mean behaviour: 

Not frozen, 

Not frantic, 

but slowly and with experimentation working out the life we want to live in our next chapter of life. 

However that raises a big question… 

How do you find the right ‘golden mean’ for you in your life? 

Here’s the part most articles skip: Aristotle’s “mean” is not a slogan. It’s a practice. 

So let’s make it practical using the What Happens Next tools. 

Pick one domain where you feel tension (work, health, friendships, purpose, money, giving back). 

Draw a simple line and label the ends: 

• Excess: what does “too much” look like for you here? 

• Deficiency: what does “too little” look like for you here? 

Example (work): 

• Excess: “work dominates identity; everything else shrinks” 

• Deficiency: “no structure; no meaning; days blur”  

This step matters because it turns vague discomfort into something you can work with. 

Here’s the mistake: people try to define their golden mean as a permanent lifestyle choice. The reality is that the right balance for us shifts over time 

That’s why it’s worth revisiting the balance in your life constantly to see if it’s working for you now. If it is, great! If not take an experiment and make some positive change. 

To do this, you can use a simple journalling loop. Ask yourself… 

• What experiments did I try? 

• What did I learn about myself? 

• Which values felt most alive? 

• Where did I feel misaligned?  

This is how you avoid “random busyness” and instead build direction. 

So here’s your invitation: 

Pick one area of wellbeing from the image below… 

Now, Name the extremes. For example, one social wellbeing extreme might be never seeing your friends and another might be seeing friends so much you haven’t got time for yourself… 

Then run one small experiment so you move away from the extremes and toward the middle. 
 

Then, Track what you learn. 

That’s how the next chapter becomes yours, and you find the balance you’ve probably been hoping to find for a long time. 

For more Aristotelian insights check out this video on 5 ways to build stronger friendships in this period of our lives  

And.. 

In this video watch our biggest intereviews of 2025. Guest insights about ‘what happens next’ which got thousands and thousands of views.