Is the Best Yet to Come?

Some of the most successful people are late bloomers – they did their most significant work later in life, sometimes after completing an entirely different career. There’s no telling what you might accomplish in your later years. Maybe the best is yet to come for you!

Ina Garten

Before Ina Garten became one of the best-known celebrity chefs in the world, she worked for the White House Office of Management and Budget. She worked under Presidents Ford and Carter and helped write the nuclear energy budget. She originally fell in love with cooking when she visited Paris in the 1970s when she and her husband lived off $5 a day there.[1] It wasn’t until decades later that she pursued a professional cooking career.

Grandma Moses

Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses, was a world-famous painter. She only started painting when she could no longer hold an embroidery needle due to her arthritis at age 76! Her works were recognized and hung in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and later all over the world.[2]

J.R.R. Tolkien

 Tolkien was an Oxford Professor for decades but did not achieve notoriety until he published The Hobbit at age 45 and The Lord of the Rings trilogy at age 62. He worked for many years studying languages and inventing his own, including Elvish, which appears in the novels. He died before publishing all of his works, and his son edited the Silmarillion, published after Tolkien’s death.[3]

Karl Lagerfeld

You may recognize his name from high-end clothing labels. Although he started pursuing fashion at age 14, he didn’t realize success until much later in life. He became head designer at Chanel at age 82 and revived the brand. At age 68, he lost about 90 lbs, allowing him to wear the fashions he loved. He died at age 85, having made a name for himself as the “chameleon of fashion.”[4]