Leaving a trail for our Son – Page 1073 – Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker

Simple Midlife Simplicity

Do you often feel overwhelmed? Me too.

And if you don’t, you’re either brilliant or clueless – I’m guessing anyway.

Human tendency is to complicate things. More is better. Keeping up with what others have or do. Newer. Bigger.

Here’s how I alleviate, not eliminate, the stress of our daily burdens:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Simple. Wise. Powerful.

But there is a complexity we must break through in order to get to simplicity.

And it may take us a lifetime.

Mid Life 1980

Mid Life in 1980?

Hardly. I was 21. A senior in college, and a dreamer.

There was a movie that shaped the mid life celebration vision. A mother was videotaping herself while she spoke to her unborn child.

She was dying of cancer and would never meet her child.

She wanted her child to be able to see and hear, directly from the video tapes, what she wished for her child and what she thought her child might want to know about their mother.

It was in the following days, on the lazy, sunny, fall days in West Chester, Pennsylvania that I dreamt of writing a book for my children.

The book would contain all the secrets of life, learned through books, travels and experiences.

While the Mid Life Celebration website is two years old, the name and vision are the same, what’s morphed is Mid Life Celebration’s purpose.

And it’s more exciting than I could have ever imagined 30 years ago. Ever feel like that?

Do you have important dreams from long ago that are more exciting today than when you first dreamt them?

How did you go about keeping them alive all these years? Or, how did you go about reigniting the flames?

Why?

Mid Life Lies

Do you lie to yourself? We all do.

So?

So what are you going to do about it and when are you going to stop?

Mid Life Crisis. Mid Life Celebration. Mid Life lies.

Life is about balancing life’s big four. Life’s big four?

Yes. Life can be broken down into four basic segments:

Mind
Body
Spirit
Money

It’s simple. People think simple isn’t important. Simple is the most important of all.

That’s why no one has focused on it relentlessly.

Until 1980.

Have you ever done something you weren’t supposed to do? And in order to do it, you had to do it in a sneaky way? And often, there was a close friend who had already done the thing, and they helped you?

Smoking, drinking, stealing, bad pranks, and so on.

Seriously, these are things adults do not make a conscious effort to teach children. Can you imagine a Mother saying, “Come here son, it’s time you learned how to smoke cigarettes.”

Heard a Chantix commercial last night. Chantix helps smokers quit. Let me set the scene:

Mom comes on saying, “I smoked a pack a day for 25 years. I could not quit smoking, no matter how hard I tried.”

Until one day……

“I told my son to promise me he would never start smoking.”

He said, “Promise me you’ll quit.”

And the Cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon. Little boy blue and the man in the moon……he turned out just like me…..my boy was just like me….

Cat’s In The Cradle

It was hard wasn’t it?

How can you pick one single solitary song, when there are ten’s of thousands, if not hundred’s of thousands of songs to pick from?

So, after re-reading the list from yesterday’s blog post, it just hit me this morning.

“Cat’s In The Cradle“, by Harry Chapin is my all-time favorite song.

Our son will turn out just like me. This song reminds me everyday to be careful what I say and do.

What about you?

Category: Leaving a trail for our Son

Simple Midlife Simplicity

Mid Life 1980

Mid Life Lies

Promise Me

Cat’s In The Cradle