Other thoughts/hypotheses on Second Curves:

• There are multiple Second Curves. The hope is that each successive curve will be more successful (steeper curve, higher performance) than the previous one. And in an ideal world, each Second Curve starts off at a higher point than where the previous Second Curve started. The fear in the context of career transitions is that neither of these conditions will be true.

• When an individual starts a Second Curve, self-definition becomes important. Who am I if I’m not the person on the First Curve (e.g., the engineer, the attorney, the writer, the academic)? Herminia Ibarra is the author of a great book that speaks to this process of trying on new identities, Working Identity. Second Curves force us to redefine who we are for ourselves and for those around us. 

• Second Curves are about personal transformation. In a conversation with Dan Pink about the barriers in moving from Boundary Crosser to Second Curve Innovator, he spoke about the importance of family support. He interviewed many people in doing research for his first book, Free Agent Nation. And what he saw repeatedly was that people said their leap into free agency would not have been possible without the support of a spouse and/or family.  Personal transformation takes place in the context of a larger system. Resistance naturally occurs when one person in the system is changing ("What, you want to leave your engineering job to be a starving artist?) Which brings me to the last point.

• Second Curves create tension with First Curves. The tension can either be creative or destructive.