With his historic decision to drop out of the 2024 race, Joe Biden finds himself in the shoes of the few who got here before him — searching for meaning and purpose when, prefer it or not, their time behind the desk of the strongest office in the world will come to an end. “I decided the best way to move forward was to pass the torch to a new generation,” he said in his First address for the country since withdrawing from the race.
Now the most significant query for him: What’s next?
In his latest book Life after power, New York Times bestselling creator Jared Cohen examines this query and the ways it has been answered by those that have previously held the most unusual office in the world: the office of President of the United States.
Cohen says he was inspired to research and write this latest book after spending a yr and a half traveling the world with Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO. “He was CEO of Google for 14 years ago, and I think that’s the least interesting thing about him, because the things he’s expressing opinions on today are a combination of technology, geopolitics and business“, Cohen told me. “So I started looking at the most dramatic retirement in the world, the presidency of the United States, and wondering, is there anything we can learn from these seemingly impossible, stratospheric people when they come back down to earth?”
By focusing on seven presidents who took completely different paths after their terms ended, Cohen uncovered useful lessons and cautionary tales that leaders across all industries can use as they consider the next steps in their skilled and personal lives.
Founder for Life: Thomas Jefferson
Lesson: Purpose can result in longevity.
“Jefferson all the time had this concept of building a great university of arts and sciences in America. He all the time thought we wanted a different type of institution for the next generation. Every founding father of a company I’ve ever met has a pool of ideas, but there’s all the time that Big Idea. And that was Jefferson’s idea, and I think his longevity—he lived to be 82—had a lot to do with wanting to do that. He finally opened the doors of the University of Virginia in 1825, and it was what you may call a bad start. A gaggle of scholars in masks rioted and chanted, ‘Down with European professors!’ and threw bags of urine and trashed the university that he personally designed. So he calls the students before a disciplinary committee—he, James Madison, and James Monroe. A really intimidating committee, to say the least! The students break down and confess their crimes, and the school becomes one of the most prestigious in the country. So there are a couple of lessons from Jefferson: one is that it doesn’t get easier as you get older, and the other is that this have to build, this need to ascertain a dream project led to its longevity.
Act Two: John Quincy Adams
Lesson: At a lower station yow will discover a much higher calling.
“There’s an assumption that people who have achieved great things have a short list of things they’ve always wanted to do so they can vote. Well, John Quincy Adams had no idea what he wanted to do next. His first act was designed by his name and his parents – he was going to be a great president. But his presidency was a political dead child because of a corrupt arrangement between him and Henry Clay. And so when he lost the election in 1828, he didn’t know what to do. And so after a few years of feeling sorry for himself, trying to become a lumberjack, and not writing a memoir about his father, he went back into politics and got elected to the House of Representatives. There he began reading petitions from voters – some of them abolitionists. And as he read them, there was a violent reaction from the Slaveocracy in the House, who wanted to silence the petitioners. Adams realized that they were violating the basic American principle that Americans have the right to petition. That drove him on. He fought for the right to free speech for nine terms, which led to his becoming a mainstream figure in what was then seen as a marginal and radical abolitionist movement. The lesson to be learned from this is that in a much lower position he found a much higher calling—and that calling found him, not that he sought it. He achieved something in the House of Representatives that he never achieved as President of the United States, namely, that he became popular.
Return of Grover Cleveland
Lesson: Getting back what you once had doesn’t necessarily make you happier.
“People look at Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan, who are two of the most successful comeback stories, but Grover Cleveland’s comeback is a cautionary tale. He shows us that getting back what you once had doesn’t necessarily make you happier. In fact, it probably makes you unhappier, because circumstances change. He entered the White House as a bachelor, got married while he was president, and then won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College because he opposed high tariffs. All he desired to do was retire with his beautiful wife, have kids, go fishing, and enjoy the remainder of his life. But he was ousted from his sense of duty to resolve the country’s problems and was reelected to a second term, losing the one thing he once had: popularity. The moment he became president, three things landed on his desk that he had no control over: 1. A gaggle of opportunistic American settlers decided to dethrone the Hawaiian queen Liliuokalani and de facto annexed the islands. 2. The Panic of 1893 was the worst economic depression of the century. 3. He feels a lump in the roof of his mouth and realizes he may have terminal cancer. He needed to hide the cancer to forestall further panic, which went against every principle he had about honesty. So when he leaves office, he spends the remainder of his life miserable and depressed. So for anyone who desires to go back and do what they did before, I think it’s really vital to grasp that it’s almost never as great the second time around.
The Dream Deferred: William Howard Taft
Lesson: Wasted opportunities are not lost endlessly.
“William Howard Taft was a man who revered the courts and dreamed of serving on the Supreme Court. But his wife, brothers, and Theodore Roosevelt all wanted him to be president. By most accounts, Taft hated being president, and it made him miserable. He served one term, ending in 1913. But his passion for the law never waned, and in 1921 President Warren Harding nominated Taft, at the age of 63, to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. So I would say the lesson here is that you shouldn’t give up on a dream when things aren’t going your way. Think of it as a postponement of a dream where, with a little luck, you might get it. Taft says that the happiest years of his life were spent as Chief Justice.”
Recovery: Herbert Hoover
Lesson: You can reclaim your legacy when you stop focusing on it.
“Before he became president, Hoover was one of the most respected men in the world. He was an orphan who became a self-made millionaire, and he was known as the great humanitarian who fed the world after World War I. When the Great Depression came, it not only destroyed the economy, but also Hoover’s platform and reputation. And when he left office, he was seen as a capitalist pig. And he began a long, 32-year journey of recovery, during which he considered returning to politics, but he knew he had no chance in the FDR era. But then, when World War II was ending, Harry Truman resurrected Hoover because the world was facing famine again, and he believed that Hoover was the only one who knew how to feed the world. So he once again achieved the status of a great executive and a humanitarian. In his final act of service, Joe Kennedy, JFK’s father, called on him after the 1960 election to reconcile Richard Nixon and JFK, to show American unity since we were in the middle of the Cold War. So when Hoover stopped focusing on reclaiming his name and focused on what he was good at, he reclaimed his name in his lifetime. He kept his mind super busy and wrote almost 10 books in the last decade of his life. He died a fulfilled person, serving the world, serving the country, and serving his mind.”
Former: Jimmy Carter
Lesson: Freed from the negative elements of your job, you may focus on the things that basically interest you — and that you just’re good at.
“Modern presidents tend to build family offices and foundations and so on, which is very much like the Jimmy Carter model. They create an infrastructure around themselves so that after they get rid of all the things they didn’t like doing in the job of president, they can double down on all the things they liked doing. Carter was principled on a lot of issues, but in some ways politics got in the way because he wasn’t a very good politician. And so, freed from office, he created a post-presidency administration that allowed him to focus on things like global health, election monitoring, conflict resolution.”
George W. Bush
Lesson: Don’t look back.
“When I looked at living presidents, only one of them doubled his popularity—or even doubled it—and that was George W. Bush. And he’s the only president of the United States, of the 45 men who served 46 terms, who managed to completely disassociate himself from the presidency. I’ve had several long interviews with him. He doesn’t reflect on his presidency, he doesn’t think about it, which is very frustrating to his critics. He describes legacy as a dirty word, a selfish word. He told me, ‘I read three books about George Washington last yr. They’re still writing books about the other George. By the time they get to me, I’ll be long gone, so why should I waste my time on that?’ It amuses him to see all these other people putting so much energy and resources into attempting to shape their legacy. And it’s almost all the time counterproductive. Because when they build themselves up, they turn out to be very vulnerable to being overthrown. But just because he’s moving away from his previous work and his previous chapter does not imply he’s moving away from the things he’s principled about. He has an unparalleled respect for the Washington rule (the idea of former presidents not criticizing their successors) and he cares deeply about veterans and the history of American immigration. And he’s discovered a voice after the presidency through painting that permits him to advertise those causes in a nonpolitical way. So I think the lesson is that you just have to develop a voice as a CEO or a founder, and once you do that, you have to find a latest voice.