With his historic decision to drop out of the 2024 race, Joe Biden is now in the position of few who have come before him — on a quest to find meaning and purpose when, like it or not, time their behind the desk of the most powerful office in the world is over. “I have decided that the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation,” he said in his the first address nation since leaving the race.

So now the big question for him: What comes next?

In his new book Life After Power, New York Times bestselling author Jared Cohen explores this question and how it was answered by those who once held the most unique job in the world: President of the United States.

Cohen says he was inspired to research and write this new book after spending a year and a half traveling the world Eric Schmidtformer CEO of Google. “He was the CEO of Google for 14 years ago, and I think it's the least interesting thing about him, because the things he thinks about today are in this the connection of technology, geopolitics and business“So I started looking at the world's most dramatic retirement, which is from the presidency of the United States, and I wondered if we can learn anything from these seemingly unrelated stratospheric people when they come back down to earth?”

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By focusing on seven presidents who followed very different paths after their terms ended, Cohen found valuable lessons and cautionary tales that leaders in all industries can learn from as they consider the next stages of their professional lives and personal.

Lifetime Founder: Thomas Jefferson

Lesson: Purpose can lead to longevity.

“Jefferson always had the idea of ​​building a great university of arts and sciences in America. He always had this view that we needed a different kind of institution for the next generation. Every business founder I've ever met has a reservoir of ideas, but there's always that big idea. And that was Jefferson's, and I believe his longevity—he lived to be 82—had a lot to do with what you'd call a bad start. A group of masked students rioted and chanted “Down with the European professors!” as they threw sacks of urine and vandalized the university he personally called, so he calls the students before a disciplinary committee – which is him, James Madison, and James Monroe confess their crimes, and the school continues to be one of the most prestigious in the country. So there are several lessons from Jefferson: one is that it doesn't get easier as you get older, and another is that you need it. construction, this need to find his dream project led to his longevity.”

Act Two: John Quincy Adams

Lesson: In a lower station, you may find a much higher calling.

“There's an assumption that people who achieve a great goal have a short list of things they've always wanted to choose from. Well, John Quincy Adams had no idea what he wanted to do next. His act the first was architected for him with his name and his parents – he was supposed to be a great president. However, his presidency was a political dead because of a corrupt bargain between him and Henry Clay did not know what to do And so, after years of feeling sorry for himself, trying to be a tree farmer and failing to write a memoir about his father, he returns to politics and is elected to the House of Representatives, where he begins reading petitions from voters – some of whom read them, there was a loud backlash from the House of Representatives who wanted to silence petitioners. It fueled him. He served nine terms fighting for free speech , which evolved into what was seen at the time as an extreme and radical abolitionist movement. The lesson here is in a much lower station, he found a much higher calling – and it was a calling that found him instead of him seeking it. He achieved something in the House of Representatives that he never achieved as president of the United States, which is that he became popular.”

Return: Grover Cleveland

Lesson: Getting back what you once had doesn't necessarily make you happier.

“People look at Steve Jobs and they look at Michael Jordan, which are two of the greatest comeback stories, but Grover Cleveland's comeback is a cautionary tale. It shows us that getting back what you once had doesn't necessarily make you happier. In fact, it's likely to make you more unhappy because the circumstances change. The principle against the high fee was just to retire with his beautiful wife and have children and fish and enjoy the rest of his life. pulled out of a sense of duty to solve the country's problems for a second term and left after losing the one thing he once had: popularity The moment he became president, three things beyond his control landed on his desk. 1. A group of opportunistic Americans decided to dethrone Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani. 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 that he may have terminal cancer. He had to hide the cancer to prevent further panic, which went against every principle he had about honesty. So when he leaves office, he spends the rest of his life in misery and depression. So for anyone who wants to go back and do what they did before, I think it's really important to realize that it's almost never as glorious the second time around.

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The Dream Deferred: William Howard Taft

Lesson: Lost opportunities are not lost forever.

“William Howard Taft was a man who respected the courts and dreamed of being on the Supreme Court. But his wife and his brothers and Theodore Roosevelt wanted him to be president. By many accounts, Taft hated being president and that It made him miserable. He served a term that ended in 1913. But his passion for the law never gave up, and in 1921, President Warren Harding appointed Taft, at age 63, as Chief Justice. So I would say the lesson here is don't give up on a dream when things don't match Supreme Court Justice.”

Recovery: Herbert Hoover

Lesson: Your legacy can be reclaimed once you stop focusing on it.

“Before his presidency, Hoover was one of the most respected men in the world. He was an orphan who became a self-made millionaire and was known as the great humanitarian who fed the world after World War I. When the Great Depression hit , He didn't just kill the economy, he killed Hoover's platform and reputation in politics, but I know he didn't have a shot in the FDR era, but then, when World War II was ending, Harry Truman revived Hoover , because the world was facing famine again and he believed that Hoover was the only one who knew how to feed the world. Thus he once again achieved the status of a great executive and humanitarian In his last act of service, Joe Kennedy, the father of JFK, 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 focused on what he was good at, he regained his name during his lifetime. He kept his mind very busy and wrote almost 10 books in his last decade of life. He died a complete person, serving the world, serving the country and serving his mind.”

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Ex: Jimmy Carter

The lesson: Freed from the negatives of a job, you can focus on the things you really care about – and are good at.

“Modern presidents tend to build family offices and foundations and so on, which is really the Jimmy Carter model. They build infrastructure around them so they can just get away with all the things they don't like to do.” in their work. president, they could double down on all the things they liked to do, Carter was principled about many things, but in some respects, the policy was not a very good politician, he created a post-presidency with an administration which allowed him to focus on causes such as global health and election monitoring and conflict resolution.”

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George W. Bush

Lesson: Don't look back.

“When I looked at living active presidents, there's only one whose popularity has doubled — or more than doubled — and that's George W. Bush. And he's the only president of the United States, out of 45 men, to serve 46 times .who managed to completely separate himself from the position that I sat down with him for several long interviews as a dirty word, a selfish word He told me: “I read three books about George Washington last year. They are still writing books about the other George. By the time they get to me, I'll be long dead, so why waste my time on this?' He takes some satisfaction in watching all these other people exert enormous amounts of energy and resources in trying to shape their legacy. And it's almost always counterproductive. Because when they build themselves up, they become very sensitive to a takedown. But just because he departs from his previous work and his previous chapter does not mean that he departs from the things he is principled about. He has an unparalleled respect for the Washington principle (the concept of former presidents not criticizing their successors) and cares deeply about veterans and American immigration history. And he discovered a post-presidential voice through painting that allows him to advance those causes in an apolitical way. So I think the lesson is that you have to develop a voice as a CEO or a founder, and once you're done with that, you have to discover a new kind of voice.”