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?

Perhaps we should drop the label “senior” or redefine it. Clearly this term has helped to embed ageist stereotypes into our societal psyche. It used to be, as David Wolfe, author of the pioneering books Serving the Ageless Market (1990) and Ageless Marketing (2003), wrote,

“Senior is not an inherently negative term…Being a senior used to connote a superior standing in every context but aging.”

Sure, many don’t mind enjoying the “senior” discounts. And for those who do retire—fully or partially—the advantages of having more free time, fewer demands, and less stress overall are additional perks.

But of course we don’t have to wait until we retire to create this kind of lifestyle. We don’t have to retire at all.

In fact, many characteristics of the stereotypical senior citizen don’t really have much to do with age at all. Or at least they don’t have to be related to age, even if we as a society have somewhat arbitrarily decided they

One of the most important tasks we have together, all generations, is to change the story we tell one another and ourselves about aging.

These characteristics can include retirement, volunteer work, adapting our lifestyle to physical changes, having more control over our time and environment. All of these are choices we might make at any age.

So if we strip away other people’s definitions of what it means to age, what it means to be over 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100…where does that leave us? How do we define ourselves as protagonists in our own aging story?

We all have different comfort levels with various terms. Some shy away from “elderly” but don’t mind being seen as an “Elder.” Some don’t mind being called “older” but feel uncomfortable being called simply “old.” Yet another person might get fed up with euphemisms and actually demand to be called “old,” dammit!

I’ve always relished the term “Crone,” the idea of taking back its original meaning of wise old woman. Some, including those who have chosen not to have children, prefer to be seen as grandmother. In ancient times, the Crone was valued and revered as a wise and prophetic goddess in her own right. Traced back to pre-history, societies that are thought to have been the first “partnerships” between women and men lasted for about 20,000 years. Then as Riane Eisler describes in her underground classic, The Chalice and the Blade (1988), these early societies “veered off on ‘a bloody 5,000-year detour’ of male domination.” Along with these partnership societies, the Crone and all images of the positive feminine were devalued, leaving only the Divine Feminine (e.g., Mother Mary) as the preferred universal Mother image to survive intact into our modern day.

Fortunately, today’s twenty-first century women are resuscitating the whole panoply of feminine archetypal goddesses, like those we have buried way below our consciousness carrying the powerful energy of the Black Madonna, the flip side of Mother Mary (e.g., Mary Magdalene, Sophia, Kali Ma, Kuan Yin, and more), so that we can reclaim our fullness by embodying the whole range of our womanhood.

I’ll tell you a secret. Every time I write—for my blog, for a workshop or keynote, for a book or article—I have to stop yet again and consider this issue: What do we call ourselves? Elders? Do I avoid the word “old” or use it unabashedly? Do I refer to us as aging or stick to euphemisms or numbers, like post-50? Maybe the over-sixties? But what about including 40-plus? Boomers…and older? Matures? How do we distinguish between the early and late Boomers, who are as different as the Brat Pack is from the Beatles? At what point do generational labels lose their usefulness?

Amazon #1 Best Seller Author of 11 books including The Ageless Way, Gray is the New Green, Visionaries Have Wrinkles, The Greatness Challenge and more.

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.

Let us try to see things from their better side: You complain about seeing thorny rose bushes;
Me, I rejoice and give thanks to the gods That thorns have roses.  

~ Alphonse Karr

Have you ever heard the phrase “Where attention goes, energy flows”? Where we choose to focus our thoughts can impact the quality of our lives. Though I think denying reality under the guise of “staying positive” can be damaging, and I do not believe positive thinking, on its own, will magically change everything, I do believe that our mindset and approach can offset negativity for ourselves and those around us, particularly when grounded in reality and tempered by intention.

A 2012 New York Times article, Older People Become What They Think, A Study Shows addressed this concept in regards to how we age. Among its assertions? “When stereotypes are negative — when seniors are convinced becoming old means becoming useless, helpless or devalued — they are less likely to seek preventive medical care and die earlier, and more likely to suffer memory loss and poor physical functioning, a growing body of research shows. When stereotypes are positive — when older adults view age as a time of wisdom, self-realization and satisfaction — results point in the other direction, toward a higher level of functioning. The latest report, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that seniors with this positive bias are 44 percent more likely to fully recover from a bout of disability. For people who care about and interact with older people, the message is clear: your attitude counts because it can activate or potentially modify these deeply held age stereotypes.”

So how do we shift ages-old culturally ingrained stereotypes about aging? How do we find resilience even when facing downsides to growing older like physical problems or disabilities, issues with illness, grief from increasing losses, and other tender life occurrences? My feeling is that Positive Aging must be rooted in authenticity, a genuine grasp of the up sides and down sides of aging and of yourself, as well as a conscious choice to discard what is not true for you and to embrace both what is true and what is possible. Often, it is precisely those of us over 40, who have garnered the kind of knowledge that can only come with time, who are best poised to face life’s challenges with a deeper, authentic sense of hope, optimism, and fortitude.

I never see what happens to me as tragic. And I’ve surely had my share of challenging times. I always find the silver lining and some positive rationale as to what my takeaway is going to be. So what kinds of benefits come to mind when I consider a more positive aging experience? For starters, as we age, many of us no longer are held back by the same all-consuming self-doubt of earlier years, so we are freer to be true to our inner nature (and in times when we do doubt, we are more aware of available resources for re-visioning our old self-stories).

~ Those of us who have lived through a multitude of experiences often find we know how to be more optimistic.

~ We may have fewer regrets as we learn to be less judgmental and have a broader context within which to examine and assess all that happens in the world.

~ We may tell our truths more courageously given a more solid sense of self.

~ With something learned from every experience and a deeper sense of self-trust, we value that each of us has deep wisdom and are able to be more discerning in our choices, what we share, and with whom.

~ We often feel less self-conscious about exploring and expressing our playfulness and creativity and are more capable of showing up with full presence to ourselves and each other. (Quick Aside: I am excited to share more detailed descriptions of these and other beneficial aspects of aging with you when my new book, The Ageless Way, is published).

Rather than seeing growing older as a reason to be discounted, let’s acknowledge and honor the beneficial aspects of aging so we can move into the future with the sound knowledge of our place in attending to, thus ensuring, a thriving, more alive, realistic and inter-connected (hence healthier) self, community, and world.

What realities of aging are you currently contending with and what benefits of aging are allowing you to find the silver lining in, and work through, your experiences?

However, from the vibrating heart of our dissipating structures comes the promise of our true greatness: a greatness of awareness and action that will change the world. From the midst of the evolving Great Transition, we leave the Great Recession and the uplifting Obama era behind us as we enter an unknown, unchartered new cycle of populism and extreme radicalism ripping our valued democratic tenets to shreds and putting each of us on the line.  This Great Shift demands that we each unlock our potential for greatness which lives in each of us, and we are being called to make a difference. That is the premise of The Greatness Challenge, in which I offer a template for embracing and embodying our unique Signature Greatness DNA^SM to unleash our personal and collective greatness.

The Greatness Challenge is a manifesto for the growing wave of us who want to add value in all we do and who are being called to personal and collective evolution—from dentists to doctors, executives to engineers, artists to teachers and visionary leaders and futurists who are looking to redesign their lives so that every moment counts . . . for those of you who seek work that not only fills your bank accounts but your “values” bank as you yearn to do well doing good . . . for leaders who seek a pathway to visionary leadership, so the impact you have is of the greatest benefit for all.

To be one of the first to hear about The Greatness Challenge when it releases join us in the Secret Facebook Group here.

Legendary actress and activist Jane Fonda’s book, Prime Time, is about living to the fullest in what she calls the “third act” of life. In her 70s, Fonda wrote about “stories from her own life and the lives of others” exploring” how the critical years from 45 and 50, and especially from 60 and beyond, can be times when we truly become the energetic, loving, fulfilled people we were meant to be.”

Fonda has never been one to hold back the truth, and in fact, her outspoken views have earned her both admiration and ire. Just like when she walked the 2017 Emmy’s red carpet sporting a ponytail and working the catwalk in Paris Fashion Week at the age of 79. But she has always remained true to her voice and her vision, always speaking up, especially when others could not or would not. This book is no exception. As she says, “I feel like my honesty gives people the freedom to talk about things they wouldn’t otherwise.”

Similarly, iconic dancer, singer, and actress Rita Moreno, of West Side Story, Singin’ in the Rain, and everything in between, at 79 is playing the most electric character ever—herself—in Rita Moreno: Life without Makeup, at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Unlike Fonda, Moreno is known more for her mystery than for her candor about her own life. She wasn’t interested in a show about herself until now. Having lost her husband of 45 years in 2010, Leonard Gordon, she is feeling the mixed emotions many widowed women feel, the bittersweet combination of profound loss and a newfound freedom. When approached again to do the show about her life, this time she agreed. In her recent memoir she lays bare Hollywood’s golden age, a tawdry and misogynistic era. In her early 80’s now, she is still sizzling!

Whether you’re like Fonda, a person who’s always spoken up about her truth, or like Moreno, discovering that now is the time to do so, one thing is clear—in Act III of life, nothing is more important than finding and using our voices, the ones that speak from the visionary we all have inside. But we can’t stop there. Part of speaking up about what matters most to us is taking action on our truths. That’s what separates us from generations gone before. We now have the opportunity to not only tell our stories, but to get out on the world stage and act.

What will your opening to your third act be?

Amazon #1 Best Seller Author of 11 books including The Ageless Way, Gray is the New Green, Visionaries Have Wrinkles, The Greatness Challenge and more.

The phrase “midlife crisis” for many brings to mind clichéd images of men quitting their unfulfilling jobs and leaving their wives to ride off into the sunset with younger women in their shiny new sports cars. Since the term was first coined, in 1965, by Elliot Jacques, much attention has been paid to this psychological phase of life, yet even today, that attention seems to focus almost exclusively on men. Daniel Levinson, the researcher who rooted the idea firmly in the popular imagination, demonstrates this in the very title of his well-known book on the subject: The Seasons of a Man’s Life.

In a  blog post on Scientific American, research psychologist Jesse Bering discusses whether the midlife crisis is even a real empirical phenomenon. Yet even this article, written only a few years ago, barely gives lip service to the experience of women in midlife. (Approximately ages 40-70.)

None of this is much of a surprise when you consider that research into such crucial subjects as heart disease has only recently begun to focus on women, only to find that heart disease does indeed affect women differently, that you can’t generalize a man’s experience to a woman’s. Is the same true for the midlife crisis?

Let’s get real. We are the first women in mass numbers to enter the unchartered menopause passage– many of us at the same time. We are clueless as to its impact on women will be at work, as consumers, in our personal lives and relationships. This is true for those of us who embrace Bio-Identical Hormones, herbals or other such protocols to lesson the downside symptoms of pre-post Menopause. True we don’t have to deal with fuzz brain, no sleep, swinging emotions, and libidos in absentia, etc. bt there’s much more to this life passage for women. Protocols or not, the midlife spiritual, psychic, and developmental shifts will come, whether they show up as a “crisis” visible to all or to none. Some of us will have more than one “midlife crisis” as we move through midlife and into early old age. The best news is that we don’t know yet what’s truly possible with our elongating longevity…adding 20 to 30yrs across our expected life spans, changes everything. Don’t you think? So what we experience and are open to in midlife truly gets us ready for the “main meal” of life, our early and middle-old age. Only to be followed by our just deserts in our last Age of life. No doubt there are other life “crisis” points along the rest of the way, as yet undocumented.

What would we find if we delved more into the unique experiences of women? Would the difference be generational more than anything? Do women in midlife and beyond today have different longings, regrets, and views on the time they have left than their mothers and grandmothers did? What are the differences for women moving thru and out of Menopause versus the men in our lives? Or are the dichotomies still essentially the same, the choices we make in how we split our time between nurturing others and nurturing ourselves, independence and dependence, work and family?

I propose that we don’t wait for the research to catch up. Women need to share their experiences and define themselves now more than ever. If we intend to have even more of a presence, to make a difference in the world, we need to start by being present to ourselves and to each other. We can’t decide where we’re going next, where we want to lead ourselves, our communities, our world, if we don’t know where we stand in the first place.

I’ve written a #1 Amazon Best Seller book (kindle & print) eBook exploring these subjects, especially where we go from here to unleash our potential to be truly great. It’s called “The Greatness Challenge”. If you are seeking indepth coverage of women and the road ahead, I invite you to also check out my #1 Amazon Best Seller, “The Ageless Way”.

I would love to hear from you in the comments. Do you “believe” in the midlife crisis? What has your experience been in midlife? Are you moving through midlife with a clearer sense of purpose? How do you think your experience as a woman is different from that of a man in the second half of life?

In a recent blog post on Scientific American, research psychologist Jesse Bering discusses whether the midlife crisis is even a real empirical phenomenon. Yet even this article, written only days ago, in 2011, barely gives lip service to the experience of women in midlife.

None of this is much of a surprise when you consider that research into such crucial subjects as heart disease has only recently begun to focus on women, only to find that heart disease does indeed affect women differently, that you can’t generalize a man’s experience to a woman’s. Is the same true for the midlife crisis?

What would we find if we delved more into the unique experiences of women? Would the difference be generational more than anything? Do women in midlife and beyond today have different longings, regrets, and views on the time they have left than their mothers and grandmothers did? Or are the dichotomies still essentially the same, the choices we make in how we split our time between nurturing others and nurturing ourselves, independence and dependence, work and family?

I propose that we don’t wait for the research to catch up. Women need to share their experiences and define themselves now more than ever. If we intend to have even more of a presence, to make a difference in the world, we need to start by being present to ourselves and to each other. We can’t decide where we’re going next, where we want to lead ourselves, our communities, our world, if we don’t know where we stand in the first place.

I would love to hear from you in the comments. Do you “believe” in the midlife crisis? What has your experience been in midlife? Are you moving through midlife and beyond with a clearer sense of purpose? How do you think your experience as a woman is different from that of a man in the second half of life?

Image credit: MinimalistPhotography101.com, via Flickr Creative Commons