The Third Act: Starting Over at 59
My sunset got canceled. Now what?
I’ve rewritten this a dozen times.
Not because I don’t know what to say—I’ve spent 44 years crafting messages that move people. Twenty years in ministry. Twenty-four years running a digital marketing agency. I know how to say the right thing, the right way, to get a specific result.
But this time, I’m not trying to get a result. I’m trying to tell you the truth.
Here it is: I spent decades doing what I was supposed to do. Working hard. Building things. Taking care of people. I was good at it. I’m still striving to be good at it.
But as I approached 60, something shifted.
At first, I thought it was me. Burnout. Midlife crisis. Whatever you want to call it.
Then I looked around.
It’s not just me. The world shifted too.
The playbook I followed for 40 years — work hard, build something, retire, coast into the sunset — that playbook was written for a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
My parents and grandparents could coast. They had pensions, predictable markets, a world that moved slowly enough to plan for. Work 30 years, retire at 65, trust that the next 20 would look roughly like the last 20.
That world is gone.
AI is rewriting every industry. The skills that made us successful are being automated, augmented, or made obsolete. The economy that rewarded our experience is transforming faster than any generation has experienced.
Ten years from now will look nothing like today. Nobody can predict what it will look like.
The human race has never been here before.
And here I am, approaching 60, realizing: this isn’t just a personal transition. It’s an inflection point. The kind that happens once in several generations.
My sunset got canceled. Now what?
That’s the question that scared me.
Not the fear of failure — I’ve failed plenty of times and survived. This is different.
It’s the fear of: Is there enough time? Did I miss something? Am I ready for what’s coming?
When you’ve spent your whole life focused on the next thing — the next goal, the next milestone, the next problem to solve — there’s a moment when you realize: the game changed while you were playing it.
And nobody handed you a playbook for this.
The world tells you this is when you’re supposed to slow down. Wind down. Play. Rest. Golf.
But here’s what I realized: that advice was built for a world that moved slowly. A world where “slowing down” was safe.
That’s not the world we’re in.
You can’t drift into your Third Act. You can’t “figure it out later.” The window for passive, unintentional living is closing — fast.
So I made a choice.
I’m not slowing down. I’m not speeding up either. I’m redirecting.
For most of my life, I measured myself by what I accomplished. Now I’m learning to measure myself by how I live.
That doesn’t mean I’m done building. It means I’m building differently. More intentionally. With a clearer sense of what actually matters — and a sharper awareness of what’s at stake.
This is the Third Act. Not retirement. Not winding down. Not fading out.
It’s the chapter where everything I’ve learned finally gets put to use — on purpose, with intention, eyes wide open to a world that’s moving faster than ever.
What You’ll Find Here
If you’re reading this, you’re probably asking a survival question.
Is my job going to exist? Am I too late to change? Did I spend 30 years building something that AI is about to make irrelevant?
You’re not having a midlife crisis. You’re watching the rules rewrite themselves in real time — and nobody’s telling you what to do about it.
This Substack is where I’m exploring what none of us can see yet.
Every week, I’m finding the voices who understand this shift — the thinkers, the researchers, the people who see this coming. I’m pulling together their best ideas, testing them against my own experience, and sharing what I find.
I don’t have a map. Likely, neither do you. But I’m committed to walking this path out loud — finding hope, finding direction, and figuring out how to move forward when the path hasn’t been built yet.
This isn’t self-improvement. This is survival — done together.
The Framework: Why “The Third Act”?
Life isn’t a straight line. It’s a story. And every story has structure.
The First Act is about discovering. Education, early career, figuring out who you are and what you can do. You’re building the foundation.
The Second Act is about doing. Career, family, obligations, achievement. You’re living out what you built. Most of us spend decades here.
The Third Act is about meaning. You’ve done the work. You’ve earned the scars. Now the question changes: What does all of this add up to? How do I want to live the rest?
This isn’t retirement. Retirement is about stopping. The Third Act is about redirecting.
It’s not about doing less. It’s about doing what matters.
The Third Act doesn’t just happen to you. You have to choose it. You have to decide that you’re going to live this chapter on purpose — not drift through it waiting for the end.
That’s what “living your life forward” means to me. Eyes ahead. Intention high. Moving toward something instead of just away from what was.
If you’re in the middle of this shift… or feeling it coming… you don’t have to figure it out alone.
Welcome to The Third Act.
BG Hamrick: The Third Act
Living your life forward