A recent study found that, past the age of 53, career success becomes much more difficult, as its three main drivers—passion, grit and positive mindset—begin to drop after that point, according to Fast Company. Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology came to this conclusion after subjecting 917 people to a series of psychological tests to measure all three traits. While one or two of them might remain, it was uncommon for people past this age to retain all three. So, someone might have a positive mindset and plenty of grit but lack the motivation to do anything with it, for example.

While research such as this might leave one in despair over the relentless march of time which seems to take all that is valuable to us in the end, we can point to a number of exceptions to the results of this study. Dame Judy Dench, for example, did not get an Oscar until she was 64; Harland Sanders, of KFC fame, was 64 when he started the iconic chicken chain; Taikichiro Mori started his property management firm at the age of 55, after retiring as an academic, and briefly was the richest man in the world because of it.