The classic reference to the Taoist approach is Lao Tsu’s sixth-century-B.C. work, Tao Te Ching. It gives directions for achieving the Taoist state of being. Here’s one from Chapter Sixty-six:

Why is the sea king of a hundred streams?

Because it lies below them.

Therefore it is the king of a hundred streams.

If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility.

If he would lead them, he must follow behind.

In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed:

When he stands before them, they will not be harmed.

The whole world will support him and will not tire of him.

Because he does not compete,

He does not meet competition.

A useful exercise to go through at the beginning of your transition is to sit down and make a list of all the things that are awesome about the current state of the world. Does everyone get along? Are your processes efficient? Is your team known for rigorous and high-quality work?

Now, next to that, create a list of all the things that could be better. Is your team cagey about deadlines? Does it seem like priorities are always shifting? Is there that one really long weekly meeting nobody wants to attend?

These two lists give you the start of a plan for what you should and shouldn’t change. You don’t need to fix what isn’t broken, but neither should you feel like you’re stuck in a time machine of this is how it was always done. After all, that’s why you got the job! Taking the time to reflect on the biggest opportunities for improvement helps you understand how to best act as a multiplier for your team.

If you’re not sure what your ideal environment looks like, ask yourself the following:

• Which six-month period of my life did I feel the most energetic and productive? What gave me that energy?

• In the past month, what moments stand out as highlights? What conditions enabled those moments to happen, and are they re-creatable?

• In the past week, when was I in a state of deep focus? How did I get there?

We found scant evidence that the people in our study had an explicit goal of working until a target retirement age to be followed by a life dominated by leisure. The vast majority of people in this study remained engaged in some permutation of a hedgehog well past the age of 60, in some cases into their 70s, 80s, even 90s. That said, nearly half the people in our study had a “retirement” from one hedgehog partway through their lives and faced the challenge of transitioning to the next one. Sometimes these were relatively smooth transitions, such as Tenley Albright’s shift from skating to surgery.

I seem to have at least as much energy at 67 as I had at 37, perhaps even more. I need less sleep. I feel on the balls of my feet, tilted forward. I can't wait to get up before 5 a.m. and throw myself into each day. The inner fire burns brighter than ever. There are multiple elements that feed into this, including the sheer good luck of health to this point in my life. But now I see that one huge element has to do with this very project being an invigorating fusion of Extend Out/Circle Back. By taking on an entirely new subject at this stage of life, shifting from studying what makes great companies tick to studying people and what makes their lives tick, I’m clearly extending out. At the same time, I’m also circling back, returning to encoded operating modes I discovered years ago, particularly my penchant for doing big research projects, going from chaos to concept, and then writing and teaching what I learn. I’m incredibly energized by discovering entirely new elements of myself in doing this project and by how the study itself has changed me in such profound ways. I’m equally energized by circling back to activate and reactivate interests and encodings I’d discovered long ago.