What's true of 0.01% of Olympics and Brian Eno?

It's not surprising that the majority of athletes at the Paris Olympics are in their 20s and 30s. If you look at the data, three-quarters of Olympians are under 30, and 99% are under 40.

By far, one of the most standout performances came from 51-year-old Turkish sharpshooter Yusuf Dikec. It wasn’t necessarily his shooting skills that grabbed everyone’s attention (though those were amazing). It was his nonchalant style that left everyone on the internet asking, "Did Turkey send a hitman to the Olympics?"

There was a stark contrast between his no-fuss, low-tech, "just got up off the couch" approach and other shooters, specifically Kim Ye-Ji of Korea (31), who also captured the world’s attention with her high-tech, equally cool, "just fell out of the Matrix" technique.

Unique and highly developed technique

Despite appearances, Yusuf’s seemingly carefree attitude is anything but. What looks like indifference is, in fact, a highly developed technique he calls "natural shooting" that uses both eyes to aim, rather than having one eye closed. The hand in the pocket provides stability and balance. Yusuf’s many decades of competition have allowed him to develop this unique and successful style, which comes from an obsession with optimization. In later interviews, Yusuf describes the rigorous training he used to prepare for the Olympics — it was 4 hours a day, six days a week, for over a year.

Incidentally, we see this same optimizing mindset in the segments from our 50+ research. One of the highest-achieving and most motivated audience segments was called the Obsessive Optimizers. These are the people who have decided that they are going to win at the game of life, and they are willing to put in the hard work, find the right tools and techniques, and make the effort to get the best out of life. This segment includes those who are running marathons, optimizing their dietary behaviors, seeking mental, physical, and spiritual improvement through discipline and ritual. They are also the people most likely to start a business in their later years, using the experiences and networks they’ve acquired while working for others.

A longer, slower path to achievement

Our cultural obsession with youth puts a lot of attention on the "young, hungry up-and-comers," but invariably, their techniques and approaches are adopted from recent teachers and established conventions. They themselves are rarely the convention breakers because these ideas come from more experienced practitioners who have had time to question and reinvent. One of the great advantages of a longer, slower path to success is that it gives you the chance to develop your own approaches, your own ideas, and your own medal-winning techniques. In addition, it often gives you a psychological advantage. Just like Yusuf, so much experience in high-stakes competition meant he had a good handle on his psychology (coolness) and level of preparedness, giving him an additional competitive edge.

Andy McDonald, a British 50+ Olympic athlete who was competing in the skateboarding competition, sums this up rather neatly: "I have an advantage in that I have obviously much more experience in skating in competition and what it takes to mentally prepare and physically prepare... I have a lot of insight as far as technique and different trick variations that maybe they [younger competitors] haven’t heard of or haven’t thought of yet." — Andy McDonald (51), Skateboarding Olympian, Paris 2024.

Experience adds up

The missed opportunity that comes from overlooking older people — whether athletes, entrepreneurs, business leaders, employees, or valued customers — is huge. Experience is not something that you have one minute and then it goes away. Experience adds up; it’s cumulative. As a result, your ideas and passions get stronger and more focused. While this may subjectively look less radical and experimental, the reality is that this experience and incremental learning greatly improve the probability of success.

I will leave you with a short clip from one of the greatest creative minds I know, as he articulates: "[What is] the most important question you can ask in your life?"

What sounds so profound coming from Brian Eno is, in fact, the conclusion that almost all people over 50 have come to. They’ve learned what things are important to them, and they prioritize their attention on these things. The implications for marketers are that the techniques and tools used to capture the attention of younger audiences will not work unless the values and priorities of the brand align with one of these six "essentialist mindsets."