Everyone wants long term success. But it is elusive for most.

Long term success is dependent on knowing where you are now and where you are headed. Then closing the gap. Frequently. Continuously.  Whether it’s your business, your career or your life at home., it’s easy to get off track, lose touch or get buried under. Without a true sense of where you are in the moment, it is impossible to realize your dreams or be a leader in your field.

Re-calibrate your profound knowledge

The only way we can take 100% responsibility for sustaining our success is to keep re-calibrating-in every aspect of our lives and organizations.

Key to successful recalibration is to acquire what my dear departed mentor, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, coined as Profound Knowledge. This umbrella phrase emphasizes understanding change and how to measure it, being aware of emerging trends and shifts, and learning how to apply this knowledge to leading and sustaining long term success.

Bottom line: If we don’t acquire Profound Knowledge we cannot know how to prepare for and leverage coming change, thus how to sustain our success long term.

Understanding change means understanding shifts in our personal world as well as tracking trends that capsize us, overtake us, or cause us to flounder.

Learning the Hard Way

Unfortunately one of my Gen X male clients learned this the hard way. A rising star in his field and recently married, he was planning far a great future for his kids, tons of time for fun and all the trappings of success. As if out of the blue, the rug got pulled out from under him. His “Happy Homemaker” wife fled, saying I’m out of here!

Somewhere along the way there was a breakdown or perhaps many small fissures below the surface. Had they been recalibrating an checking in with each other, communicating the truth of what was so for each of them…perhaps they could have saved their marriage…or at least ended it with love, grace, and forgiveness.

Even in the most secure relationships, unexpected change happens to ruffle our plans. A recently returned to work mother of teenage kids reported that her new career is now going gangbusters and she no longer worries about the empty-nest . But, the new ripple in her life is that her once very successful husband, in his late 40’s, now faces an unknown future. Surprised by the shifts in his industry, “suddenly” he and his business partner are facing the probability of closing their doors. What once appeared to be the sure path to their dreams, is no crumbling beneath them.

Change is inevitable. If you can learn what Profound Knowledge is and apply it you can avoid these same pitfalls and NOT LEARN THE HARD WAY!

What steps are you going to take to future cast your long term success?

Always Add Value is one of my 52 Quintessential Principles of Greatness codified to keep us moving from great to greatness.

I forget to apply this principle myself every once in a while. In fact, just last week I was asked to by a really sharp associate leader, “what value will you bring to my membership?” What caught me most off guard was that the Value Added editorial thrust of this issue was already in the works.  Here I was being confronted with having lost sight of this very principle.  Will the learning ever stop?  Nope.  I sure hope not.

These on-target questions inspired me to re-think how I add value by what I do.  I responded that her high achieving and accomplishing members match the profile of my clients.  They are successful in their chosen field; they want to expand their referral network and are seeking to improve the results.  Coaching entrepreneurs, family firms, executives and professionals, I appreciate their business challenges and professional concerns.

All of these movers n’ shakers want to improve the performance of their firms, attracted new and maintain current revenues and customers. But that’s not all.  What I’ve learned is that these truly accomplished folks relish the opportunity to fine-tune and to stretch. Even more so, they know that becoming a better communicator and a leader ensures that they will thrive in these challenging times.

I also added that we all aim to keep our personal and professional lives in balance.  It’s just such a struggle when buffeted constantly with destabilizing sound bites and constant emails announcing disruptive shifts in our world and demands on the personal front. Add that to having to deal with the pressure of invigorating a work life, keeping the home fires burning and just having fun. Whew! That’s why powerful people look for coaches who add value by moving them to greatness and to building legacies that are unforgettable.

I could have kept riding my dead horse, not “hearing” what I was being asked. Instead, I took in the question and changed my language so that I could add greater value, On the other hand , if my response fell on deaf ears, then I would need to change horses by seeking out another grouping of people who would be more in sync.

In the process of re-stating my value added, I was reminded that more and more of us are wanting to realize our vision for a better and sustainable futures for ourselves, our loved ones, our workplace, community and our planet.

What I’ve found is that today’s vanguard leaders are seeking to make meaning as well as money, and build legacies as well as bank accounts.

What’s become paramount is that if we are to reach our greatness, we are must take a good look at our lives, our leadership and our relationship asking the probing questions:

Am I in the right tribe?  Am I adding value in all do?

You may know that you want to start a business, for example, but you’re unsure of what kind of business exactly. You may only vaguely know that you want to do something purposeful, but you aren’t sure if this means volunteering or work or some combination, or what exactly you would be doing.

If you have not yet decided on what you want to be when you grow up :), consider the opportunities inherent in our most precious resource—time.

For all the time-saving technology we gain each year, we somehow seem to have less and less time available to us. Busy working parents don’t have as much time to volunteer in schools or spend as much time with their children as they’d like. Even kids don’t have as much time for free play with all their activities, sports, and school-related commitments. In an increasingly urban society, some kids have the time for free play but no safe spaces to do so, and their parents don’t have time to take them to safe spaces.

Many areas of traditional volunteer work, such as visiting with the sick and infirm, feeding the homeless, helping care for animals in shelters, and so forth, are lacking in volunteers because people simply do not have the time.

One answer, of course, is to simply step up and be a volunteer. But consider looking at this from a different perspective. How can you or your business save people time in ways that specifically allow them to have more meaningful time? With their children? Their parents? Volunteering themselves?

If you run (or plan to run) a business with employees, this could be a part of how you set up your workforce, using job sharing, flexible hours, work-at-home days, and so forth to enable your employees to balance their lives. Or your business could be the meaningful work that you (with or without employees) want the time to do.

If you are still with a company, planning your own eventual exit, now is the time to research and develop alternate scenarios that could serve you, your colleagues, and the business, such as a consultant relationship or part-time substitute situation that enables everyone to take Meaning Days along with the traditional vacation time and sick time.

Any business that brings extended families and communities together to help each other out and save time is bound to hit a ready market. What if busy parents only worried about cooking dinner once or twice a week? How about a service that brings young kids to meet with parents over lunch near or at their work?

How about a program for companies to buy into that sends groups of employees to volunteer with their families in the name of the company?

The possibilities are endless—as are the potential profits—when you consider what is truly meaningful to you and to others. Contrary to the trope about the later years of life, time really is on our side.

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For those going through life stage shifts, particularly at midlife and beyond, these greater societal shifts and story conflicts run parallel to the transitions and upheaval in our personal and professional lives. The chaos and uncertainty is coming from all sides, and it’s tempting to hang on for dear life to anything stable and certain we can find, even if doing so means remaining in an unfulfilling career or toxic work environment, such as what former BBC presenter, Miriam O’Reilly (53) experienced. O’Reilly was one of four female presenters, all in their forties or fifties, who were dropped from the 23-year-old show. Not only did she leave…she filed an age-discrimination and victimization suit and won. 

These are the times when we have more opportunities, not fewer, to transform our work, our world, and ourselves. 

A fast-moving wave of a diverse cross-section of us is leaving behind the hallowed halls of large corporations, institutions, and organizations. No matter how you leave one chapter to the next, the no-exit terror of those no-return revolving doors as you make your way out are anxiety-producing, even frightening, especially in chaotic times. We are in the midst of a page-turner. We are witnessing, and are morphing into, lean and mean new start-ups. Clearly our feminine entrepreneurial spirit is rising. 

Read More in my Amazon Best Seller Gray is the New Green.

“A definitive book. At a defining moment.” 

~ Elsie Maio, Founder of Humanity, Inc/The SoulBranding^SM Institute

Clearly Global Warming is not a hoax. Even current POTUS finally admits, sort of, suggesting on 60 Minutes that we may actually have a BIG problem on our hands all around the globe!

Clearly his is not a dress rehearsal.

A Science (STEM) educator in my youth, I railed about “Greenhouse Gases”.  Now we find ourselves here. We are almost out of time to reverse. 10 yrs is a best case scenario before its catastrophically too late to reverse significantly?

Tell then why all this push to invest in fossil fuels (coal, fracking, drilling in National Lands, etc.) Only answer that makes any sense in light of science and

Human observation, is unadulterated greed and corruption.

It would cost us a lot less to retrain all our fossil fuel related workers to Green Energy related opportunities instead. Clearly a win-win-win for us all…around the world.

How about we plan for everyone’s greater future by investing in retraining our workers in tech and other higher skilled work, as well as repurpose those who

Are needed but need basic retraining from shop floor to a new use of their talents

And the best of the best we can tap and provide leadership development programs, plus ongoing professional development. Doing this will make us great again as a Nation (and the world) even in our tumultuous times.

I’ve always been an optimist. But when it comes to Global Warming, I am an educated pessimist.

A systemic breakdown does not automatically become a breakthrough. Only you and I must choose to ensure that out of these chaotic fast-paced times that we will not dissipate into the ethers. Rather that our whole system will evolve to a higher level of development into in to a coherent whole. What I coned as CoHERency.

Here in America our Mid-term elections have started, which will determine the fate of our democracy for a long time…for generations to come.

The new reports coming out recently and topped by this one today, tell of the drastic current and future impact of Climate Change – reads like straight out of a Cinemax horror documentary.

So for anyone to blow off, try to skirt around and outright cover their prior words about Climate Change being made up is denial and avoidance for green, power or both.  So the totally slim possibility that the severe weather striking worldwide isn’t caused by humans, per Marco Rubio, is absolute insanity mixed in with saying anything to hold onto his seat.

Trusting politicians is deadly. Trusting science in this case is our only real savior!

Whatever party affiliations you have, on this one issue of planetary survival, we must all agree to VOTE to turn out those uneducated Climate Deniers and/or those Deniers who know better.

Our current raft of Carpetbagger deniers in the GOP and with DJL leading the White House, EPA and Dept. of Interior clearly must want to party it out before its their end time. I guess they don’t worry about their legacy to ensure their kids, and grandkids have a planet to call home.  Why else then are they pursuing in earnest to accelerate the destruction of our planet?

VOTE like your life matters, cause it does! Vote like our Mother Earth matters, cause it does!

Our current leadership prefers seeking out other planets or other solar systems and galaxies to live on. All the super powers are now in a race to conquer yet again.  I ask, but for whom? Most of these old white conservative guys are too old to benefit from further space exploration!  Yet off theses carpetbaggers go, like some evil enterprise threatening the StarShip in a Star Wars megawar of the world!

Let’s replace these old white conservative guys who clearly have an axe to grind and are are hell bent on the destruction of what was great about America.  Distrubtion is great for technolocy and innovation, but it appears to suck royally when applied to governance. What we need now is new leaders who know that we are at a planetary turning point on every plane of our very existence.

So let’s put all we’ve got into retrieving our own planet first!

If beer is going to guide you when you VOTE , then so be it! 

Let’s raise our beer bottles to toast on this!

Sound financial planning is an obvious answer, but it’s also an ideal-world answer. In the real world, the effects of the recession, the costs of caring for parents and children, and the denial of the eventual effects of aging on our health are just a few factors that can make financial planning not enough to secure the future.

For many, the solution is to work past retirement age, some by necessity but many others out of desire to keep working. Individuals and companies are catching on to the idea of flexible working options, particularly those that allow telecommuting, job sharing, and shorter work weeks. These are benefits not just for Boomers but for the younger working generations as well.

Most age-friendly ideas for the workplace (and indeed for our homes and communities) are beneficial to all ages and stages. The sooner organizations and governments recognize this (and the more we emphasize it), the more prosperous and secure we will all be, in the workplace and as a nation.

In fact, longevity has been shown to have a positive effect on the economy. A 2005 study, “The Value of Health and Longevity,” by Robert Topel and Kevin Murphy, of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, demonstrates massive economic benefit to living longer and healthier than in the past:

Over the 20th century, cumulative gains in life expectancy were worth over $1.2 million per person for both men and women. Between 1970 and 2000 increased longevity added about $3.2 trillion per year to national wealth, an uncounted value equal to about half of average annual GDP over the period. Reduced mortality from heart disease alone has increased the value of life by about $1.5 trillion per year since 1970. The potential gains from future innovations in health care are also extremely large. Even a modest 1 percent reduction in cancer mortality would be worth nearly $500 billion

Therein lies the paradox: Longevity is undeniably good for the economy as a whole while presenting economic challenges for the individual. How do we bring the economic benefits to the individual?

This question is crucial not only for Boomers but also for future generations, especially the equally massive Millennial generation. We need more than short-term fixes. We need lasting changes in the workplace as well as changes in how we—at the individual, organizational, and governmental level—ensure a financial safety net that is adequate for the longer lives many of us will live.

What changes would you like to see in the workplace and in government policy to ensure longevity is a boon for all of us?

Download a FREE mini-book, “The Origins of the New HERstory of Our AGE“ based on The Ageless Way

Seeking a Firecracker Keynote?
Calling for expert guests?
Let’s Rock Your AGE, come pick my brain!

I often say that most of us have the potential to do 95 percent of our best work in the last 5 percent of our lives. As we age, we become well poised to offer a range of perspectives and skills, which can only come with time and experience. This is true throughout our lives starting from when we are babies learning how to walk and speak. Our middle and later years can be a time in which many of us have raised families, had some success in our work (and perhaps reached the silver ceiling…), and may wish to pursue old (or new) dreams if we have the ability, opportunity, time and financial security.

A perfect example of someone who has learned from experience and is using her personal history and decades-long patience to find opportunity, satisfaction, and meaning is 91-year-old Barbara Beskind. Beskind was the focus of a Today Money piece by Scott Stump (February 25, 2015, Today.com), the title of which tidily sums up her story: ‘Age is not a barrier’: Tech designer, 91, lands her dream job in Silicon Valley. 

Beskind’s inventiveness began “out of necessity” during the Great Depression in the 1920’s. As she tells it, “I wanted to make a hobby horse, and I made it out of old tires. I learned a lot about gravity because I fell off so many times.” Despite having decided by 10 years old that she wanted to be an inventor, a high school counselor told her that females weren’t accepted at engineering school. She, therefore, pursued other avenues and hobbies until two years ago, at 89, she had an opportunity to follow her original dream. Beskind applied and was hired for a one-day-a-week job testing and designing aging-related products at the Silicon Valley global design firm, IDEO, where she still works today.

While praising the welcoming inter-generational culture and atmosphere at the company, in the Today story Beskind also shared her perspective about hiring someone from her generation for that position. Suggesting that many younger designers “…can’t put themselves in the shoes of the elderly” and, therefore, often design for fashion rather than functionality, she shared her feeling that “… elderly people bring experience that you can’t teach.” 

The idea of pursuing one’s passion and meaning in an “encore career,” a career after retirement, is becoming increasingly popular as we live longer and have more opportunities. Whether following through on an old dream or creating a new one, if situations permit, many of us find our satisfaction in such pursuits.

My own experience involved shifting careers in midlife (in what I have since termed my second “midlife reclamation”) from a successful corporate career to that of an educational GeroFuturist with my own consulting, coaching and publishing business. Was it easy? Not at all! Transition rarely is. Experiencing somewhat of a crisis of the Soul, I agonized while reviewing who I was and wanted to be, what was most important to me and how I could find meaning, significance and fulfillment while also giving back and making a difference for others. These are often common hallmarks for anyone pursuing their heartfelt passion and/or looking to have an encore career, whether by choice or even by necessity.

Career changes, whether they follow retirement or not, may involve some unexpected shifts, detours or delays. For those of us who are ready, Radical Reinvention is in order. Sometimes, when we consciously choose to pursue a process of breaking away from what was to what can be, we will traverse what I have long called The Canyon of the Soul. In this trek you will transform based on the best of you, as well as reclaiming the core of what really matters to you. As I mentioned in my February 11, 2014 blog, False Alarm: Reinvention is Boomer Friendly (www.karensands.com/false-alarm-reinvention-is-boomer-friendly), “Now is the last chance we get to embrace the gift of turning crisis into opportunities.”

Yes, you often have to toss out old definitions of yourself and of success, as well as aspects of your life that do not really matter, that are merely clutter. You have to remove the tangential plot lines, the side stories that distract from the main plot, and sometimes you have to even cut characters who are dragging the story down. Radical Reinvention is a purification process, getting down to your essence, to your Signature Greatness DNA, and to your core values. At the same time, you don’t have to toss the gold with the dross, so it is key to know yourself and have a clear vision.

Eight decades after dreaming of becoming an inventor, Barbara Beskind chose to make her vision a reality. Her story exemplifies that dreams can be achieved at any age. I imagine (and hope) that as we live longer, stories like this will become commonplace.

 Do you have an old dream you are pursuing? What advice do you have for others wanting to do the same?

•  Download a FREE mini-book, “The Origins of the New HERstory of Our AGE“ based on The Ageless Way 
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• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Ageless Way Explorers Coalition.”
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Greatness Challenge.” 

• Download a FREE mini-book, “The Origins of the New HERstory of Our AGE“ based on The Ageless Way 
• Seeking a Firecracker Keynote 
• Calling for expert guests?
• Let’s Rock Your AGE, come pick my brain!
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Ageless Way Explorers Coalition.”
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Greatness Challenge.” 

It’s crucial for all industries and fields to reach out to the 50-plus demographic; some of the most savvy are doing so. Higher education is no exception. Both Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter at Harvard and a spanking-new initiative at Stanford University are trawling for a new kind of student seeking to reinvent the next stage after midlife. Stanford openly espouses that it wants to attract proven leaders with twenty to thirty years of work experience on the hunt to reinvent their futures.
University and advanced adult education and professional development programs are the future. No doubt a proliferation of new higher education programs modeled off of the Harvard and Stanford programs will emerge over the next decades.

I’ve been known to get rather passionate when I speak about the paucity of career changers and younger generations enrolled or even interested in the field of aging. Both are leaving money on the table and growing opportunities in the dust.

I want to rant and rave that the aging field is not all about changing bedpans. Don’t get me wrong; personal care for the frail elderly and disabled is a critical task for one of the fastest growing careers today as a health care worker.

Rather, what I’m so excited about are the enormous possibilities for meaningful work in serving the maturing 40-plus market, and those succeeding generations who will soon be 40-plussers themselves. That’s why in this chapter I’m compelled to include the trend information relating to new careers in aging.

Yet we continue to read and hear from the media that Millennials have no opportunities before them, or that Boomers and Millennials will continue to fight for job positions. Give me a break! There are so many untapped career opportunities in the aging field (and it’s tangential fields) that no one needs to be out of work! That is, not if they are trained and skilled, especially those with a long career history.
Just take a look at the numbers: The United States Census Bureau and Civic Ventures project reports that by 2030, Ameri- cans age 55 and older will number 107.6 million, 31 percent of the population. Those over 65 will account for 20 percent of the total population. The Nielsen study reports that by 2017 Baby Boomers will control 70 percent of America’s disposable income. This is a market to be reckoned with, so it’s best to get on the new millennium job growth curve in the field of aging sooner rather than later. Otherwise, you may miss an incredible opportunity of these times for your career, your business, or your organization.

Please be advised that everything in the field of aging is morphing rapidly, creating an exciting plethora of emerging opportunities in a variety of specialty roles and services. Not only because of the swelling ranks of the over-50s, but because the field of aging is evolving at warp speed. It’s not just bedpans anymore.

My goal here is to make sure you stay with me and not get turned off to this meaningful, high-impact field as your possible “what’s next” or as your new marketplace to increase your market share. So I’m going to ask you to stay with me while I share an overview of the aging field’s history right up to today…and tomorrow.

As I write, there is a great deal of healthy Creative Destruction going on in the aging field. The new “older adult” demo- graphic of Leading-Edge Boomers is wreaking havoc on the longtime preferred and universally accepted disease model of aging that has long been the underpinning of the field.
I’m a rabid fan of transforming the language, symbolism, and narrative around aging. Our languaging, especially around hot-button topics, reveals what’s not being said out loud or what is still unconscious and informs how we perceive or imagine things to be. So let’s start off with the languaging, including commonly accepted definitions and how they are integrally entwined with the history of the aging field.

• Download a FREE mini-book, “The Origins of the New HERstory of Our AGE“ based on The Ageless Way 
• Seeking a Firecracker Keynote 
• Calling for expert guests?
• Let’s Rock Your AGE, come pick my brain!
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Ageless Way Explorers Coalition.”
• Join me in my Facebook Group “The Greatness Challenge.” 

2009 was the year disaster came my way. It started by quitting my job to salvage a marriage of 19 years. By midyear I divorced, left the state, and had half the assets my husband and I stringently built, never expecting to divorce. My grandfather died in July. I suffered a health issue Thanksgiving Day. My father suffered an injury that left him severely brain damaged. Let’s not forget the economic turmoil and I was 45 years old, unemployed, and in a new state (geographical as well as mental mindset).

It was tough to bounce back after the last half of 2009. While I did everything right on the outside to deal with the loss, inside was where the storm raged.

For 3 years.
During those years, I battled what I thought was the biggest obstacle to my success: introversion. I attended up to 5 networking events per week, within a 150 mile radius to build awareness for my business.

Growth occurred externally, but internally, I continued to grieve all I lost in 2009. While I blamed myself for much of the sorrow, I was also guilty of waiting for things to improve on their own.
It wasn’t until my mother, still grieving the loss of her husband (who was in a semi-vegetative state) said, “Nothing every goes right for our little family.”
“That’s not true!” I insisted. When she asked me to prove it, however, I couldn’t. We had been so locked in our negative mindset that growth and peace continued to evade us. The dark clouds still hovered and I was appalled by my negativity. I could have done something to end the storm.

Blowing the Clouds Away

It started with a smile. A soul-deep smile that radiated throughout the body. A smile that would attract people rather than keep them at a distance.
Next, I sought positivity in the past tragedies and applied it to the growth and opportunity in the present. With these tools, smiling became easier and I didn’t feel so mentally weighed down.

Glimpses of Light

The Universe observed my activity. It wasn’t going to immediately give me a thumbs-up and lay out a shiny red carpet in front of me. Nope. It tested me. A new lead backed out at the last minute. A client wasn’t pleased with my services. I got bronchitis. Twice. My laptop died. I was tempted to slip back into the storm, but moved forward instead.
Then tiny things happened. I slept better. Clients sent referrals. Migraines diminished. My blog took on new life as I focused on entrepreneurship and life after 50.
My rebrand progressed until Dad died November 2015. There were a few related setbacks but they didn’t hold me for long.
Until June 2017. I lost my two largest clients due to budget cuts and suddenly had no money coming in. This was a huge trial for me, but I kept going.

The Results of a Positive Mindset

The gloom faded quickly.
The storm didn’t infect other aspects of life.
Opportunities were easier to identify.
Additionally, I could dedicate myself fully to my rebrand without other projects competing for my time and attention.
Armed with these super powers, I got back to business with fire and determination. In under 2 months I got published in 6 online publications and was ASKED to become associate editor for Boomalally magazine.
Lessons learned:
Blow the clouds away.
Believe in yourself.
Trust yourself.
Test your limits and push past them.
Take risks.
Ignore the naysayers
Abandon the self-pity. It only gives others the opportunity to race past you.
Don’t waste another minute. Too much has already been wasted.
Make every moment count.
Furthermore, SMILE!
Recently, my mother sent a text message saying she’s having a burst of happiness. When I encouraged her to have more, she said, “I’m not normally a positive person, so I’m sure you have something to do with it.”
That certainly made me smile.
Are you ready to smile again? You’ll quickly discover that a positive mindset is contagious.
Kristen Edens
Managing Midlife

Kristen Edens is a content and brand development specialist for business. She is the founder of the Managing Midlife blog and covers topics of finance, second acts, and caregiving for the Sandwich Generation. Her writing has been featured at Business.com, Booming Encore, Small Business Monthly, St. Louis Women’s Journal, Missouri SourceLink, Better After 50, and Thrive Global. Her latest adventure is becoming the associate editor and oracle of inspiration for Boomalally, a magazine dedicated to those celebrating a life well lived after 50.